1885 



i 



L 



NATURE m SCRIPTURE. 



a Stutig of mW Ferificatton 



IN THE RANGE OF COMMON EXPERIENCE. 



E. C. CUMMINGS. 

vl 




rh Kad' r)/j,€pay avaKpivovres ras ypacpas, el exoi ravra ovrccs. 

The Acts, xvii. 11, 



jim s toes J/ 



PORTLAND, ME. 

HOYT, FOGG, AND DONHAM, 

193 Middle Stbeet. 

1885. 






Copyright, 1884, 
By E. C. Cdmmings. 



SJni&ersita ?3wss: 
John "Wilson and Son, Cambkidge. 



10 



^ 



PREFACE. 



SO long as tlie Bible is studied as a deposit of truth, 
so long it will be studied as a standard of appeal 
with respect to what is the truth, which, in the whole or 
in any part, was intended to be conveyed. In studying 
the Bible, however, different minds may start from oppo- 
site points and meet on a common ground. 

For example, one class of minds starts from a postu- 
late of inspiration, and moves on to a conviction of truth 
in which the postulate is sustained. Another class of 
minds starts from a point of view which denies the pos- 
tulate of inspiration, and moves on to a conviction of 
truth — the same truth, possibly, by which alone the 
postulate of inspiration can be supported, whether as 
premise or conclusion. 

But vastly more numerous than either of these classes 
is the great middle class, children in families and Sun- 
day-schools, sober-minded hearers in church, who listen 
for the meaning of what is said, preoccupied people, who 
do not concern themselves with speculations, — to all of 
whom the Bible is commended, and to many of whom it 
commends itself, on account of its kindly intention, its 
truth to nature and life. 



@ 



IV PREFACE. 

Of course, the truth of the Scriptures is in what they 
really mean. Any theory of inspiration would contem- 
plate that meaning of the written word which is identical 
with the Divine thought ; but no theory of inspiration 
can assure us of what that meaning is. On the other 
hand, let the Divine thought be made clear, and it is 
independent of all theories of inspiration. We are satis- 
fied with the truth, in whatever way it may have been 
ministered to our spirits. 

The study which is to follow has reference to the 
meaning of the Scriptures, — not the meanings of detail, 
the affair of critical exegesis, but the meaning which is 
simple and coherent, the result of a reasoned estimate 
and comparison of plain popular testimony. 

In the Scriptures the order of nature is the creation of 
God. This might suffice as the one premise on which 
our study should proceed. But for the sake of distinc- 
tion and definiteness, it seems better to define two prem- 
ises — the answers to two questions ; namely, "What is 
nature as contemplated in Scripture? and, What is 
Scripture in relation to nature? 

1. Nature, as contemplated in Scripture, is the uni- 
versal system of which man finds himself a part, and 
which he rationally refers in whole and in detail to 
supernatural causation. 

2. Scripture, in relation to nature, is a complement of 
writings, whose distinguishing mark is not in unity of 
time, action, or literary form, but in unity of testimony 
to one self-existent Creator of all things, conceived as 
dealing, through material elements and spiritual messenr 
gers, with human society as a whole; especially, as ad- 
vancing a chosen people to eminent service for mankind 
under an economy of moral control and spiritual disci- 



PREFACE. V 

pline, wherein the people is called to voluntary co-opera- 
tion with God in his revelation, while the revelation of 
God is affirmed as the ruling factor in the history of 
mankind, till at length revelation surpasses the earlier 
economy, and comes to personal consummation in a Man 
of divine character — the Word of God, the Light of the 
world. 

These premises are important, as indicating what the 
verification of Scripture involves. 

There is a process of verification applicable to the 
Scriptures as to other writings, which is outward and 
incidental. Assuming the canon and the text, attentive 
reading is a process of verification in proportion to the 
reader's intelligence, whether as respects the outward 
representations or the inward significance of the sacred 
writings. Any further verification is a broader or deeper 
reading. It is a broader reading that is carried on in 
the fields of comparative philology, archaeology, history, 
and physical science, where are sought the proofs of 
fidelity and exactness in the setting forth of outward 
aspects or objects in any region or period contemplated. 
The range of this reading is without assignable limits of 
space or time. 

But the province of verification which is the most 
important as well as the most interesting, is inward and 
integral. It contemplates the quality and power of di- 
vine teaching as certified in its spiritual effects ; for ex- 
ample, that it commands the concurrence of human 
reason in its own right; that it takes sovereign posses- 
sion of man's higher convictions, in order to dominate 
his lower tendencies ; that it proclaims prophetically in 
the human soul the overruling of man's free activity 
according to divine intention; that it raises the con- 



VI PREFACE, 

ception of God and of his government through lessons of 
experience and the logic of events ; and so educates the 
human mind to an apprehension of manhood as designed 
to surpass the degree of physical creation, the visible 
image of God, and to reach spiritual consummation in 
the very character of the Father. This is the verifica- 
tion of deep reading, — on the basis of " internal evi- 
dence," but without limits of time or space. 

The revelation of God set forth in the Scriptures is, 
therefore, co-extensive in its range with the work of God 
as disclosed to us in nature. But as accommodated to 
the spiritual apprehension and experience of mankind, 
this revelation is progressive and cumulative, — holding 
on its way according to a ruling idea and purpose. It 
contemplates the instruction of mankind in the knowl- 
edge of God and of eternal life, — not in the cosmical 
mysteries of matter and motion. Accordingly, it deter- 
mines the religious consecration of language, — not its 
scientific development. It gives names and descriptions 
of material nature according to conceptions of common 
sense, which cover all that science can ever discover, — 
addressing men in their own tongue wherein they were 
born, not in the terminology of experts to which but few 
are ever trained. Hence it is logically impossible that 
any but constructive and transitory contradictions should 
ever occur between Scripture representation and scien- 
tific truth in the domain of material nature. 

But in the realm of the human spirit the case is dif- 
ferent. Here revelation makes for change, — change in 
the forms of conscious experience, change in the quality 
and quantity of being. Man is conceived as constituted 
in order to his being changed. It is in the progress of a 
personal struggle with outward nature, with his fellow- 



PREFACE. vii i 

men, with himself, in fine, with the Maker of all, that 

man passes from what he is to what he is becoming. j 

Hence the meaning of Scripture which concerns the | 

divine law of personal development, the meaning of Scrip- | 

ture which declares itself as the oracle of life through \ 

all ages of transformation, — this is the meaning which j 

abideth forever, the Word of the Eternal. j 

If, then, there is found in Scripture a convincing tes- ■ 
timony to universal nature as the medium of a perpetual J 
creative teaching in the human spirit for man's ultimate ) 
perfection, no wonder if it be found necessary, in each 
succeeding generation, to verify the vital significance of '\ 
particular words, and to deal anew with questions of 
faith that can never be so answered as not to be asked j 
again, till it is recognized as a rule of life, — that any ; 
one, having freely received, shall freely offer to other ] 
learners the results of such inquiry as the progress of \ 
his own mind has required him to undertake, and re- 
warded him for carrying through. \ 

Under this rule the essay that follows is offered, for : 

acceptance or correction, — not as if what is verifiable \ 

were the measure of what is true, but because the I 

human mind is ever seeking what is verifiable in the i 

effort to learn what is true. i 

■.i 

PoETLAND, Mb., Feb. 1, 1884. ; 



con1:ents. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Page 
Concerning Speech and Words 3 



PART FIRST. 

THE WORLD TUTELAGE. 
Chapteb 

I. Tutelage a Law of Nature 23 

II. Cosmical Tutelage . 27 

III. Ionian Tutelage 31 

IV. Ages of Human Development 39 

V. Ages of Divine Teaching 46 



PART SECOND. 

THE FALL. 

I. Original Man and Primitive Trial 57 

11. Genesis Cosmical and Ionian 73 

III. Moral Development from Discoveries of Law 83 



CONTENTS. 



PART THIRD. 

THE PRINCIPLE OF JUSTIFICATION". 

Chapter Page 
I. Of Faith as related to Man's Dependence and 

Progress 101 

II. Against Transcendental, Notions of Primitive 

Responsibility 114 

IIL Original Man and Historic Man 127 

IV. The Perfect Faith and the Approved Man . 135 



PART FOURTH. 

THE MANIFESTATION OF EVIL. 

I. Of Speculations on Original Sin 145 

11. Of Spiritual Law Overruling Physical Ten- 
dency 151 

IIL Of Pains and Penalties as related to Conduct 160 
IV. Of Physical Death as related to Spiritual 

Development 175 

V. Deterrent Consequences of Deliberate Un- 
belief 188 

VI. Evil as set forth in the Christ's Teaching . 193 



PART FIFTH. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT. 

I. Recapitulation and Transition 213 

II. The LaV of Atonement in its Physical Type . 220 

HI. The Law of Atonement in General History . 228 
IV. The Law of Atonement in Scripture History. 

Primitive and Patriarchal Sacrifice . . . 242 



CONTENTS. xi 

Chapter Page 

V. Sacrifice under the Law 252 

VI. Sacrifice according to the Prophets . . . 263 
VII. The Law of Atonement Fulfilled in the 

Christ 271 

VUI. Immediate Sequel of the Christ's Incarnate 

Ministry 290 



PART SIXTH. 

CRISES IN THE PROCESS OF REDEMPTION. 

I. Of Justice and Judgment 299 

11. Crises under Laws of Physical Change . . 303 

III. Crises under Laws of Spiritual Development 309 

IV. Crises According to the Old Testament 

Teaching 316 

V. Crises Interpreted by the Christ .... 319 



Conclusion 337 



INTRODUCTION. 



CONCERNDfG SPEECH AND WORDS. I 



" And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the 
field, and every fowl of the air ; and brought them unto Adam to 
see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every 
living creature, that was the name thereof." 



Genesis, n. 19. 



" A NATURAL action is it that man speaks ; 
But whether thus or thus, doth Nature leave 
To your own art, as seemeth good to you." 

Longfellow's Dante, — " Paradise," xxvi. 130. 



NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 



INTEODUCTIOK 
CONCERNING SPEECH AND WORDS. 

TT is proposed to study some parts of the Scripture 
-^ teaching in the light of material objects and human 
experiences to which that teaching bears testimony. 

To adjust one's instrument is to begin work. I know 
of no better introduction to the work proposed than 
paying some attention to speech, — that curious instru- 
ment by which all things, and all relations of things, 
are brought into the working of men's minds. 

The fundamental teachings of Scripture are not local 
or temporary, — but universal. The field is the world. 
Accordingly, the earliest Scripture brings to our notice 
the universal law of human speech; and a brief con- 
sideration of this law can hardly fail to quicken and 
temper our judgments as to the use of some very impor- 
tant words in the latest Scriptures, — words by which 
the whole sphere of reality wherein our thought moves 
has been summed up. 

The picture of primitive speech in the second chap- 
ter of Genesis is fresh and appreciable now, for the 
reason that in whatever ways the forms of speech may 



4 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

have changed, the inner reality is ever the same. To- 
day, as in the beginniag, living creatures are formed 
out of the dust of the ground, and are brought to man. 
New species, or peculiar individuals, may at any time 
come to man's notice in the course of propagation and dis- 
covery, and still the rule holds good that whatsoever man 
calls every living creature, that is the name thereof. The 
method of naming belongs to the method of creation. 

Any object brought to man's attention suggests its 
own name, we may imagine, by means of some striking 
quality or aspect. Then other objects possessed of the 
same quality, or presenting the same aspect, range them- 
selves under the same name. In this way the name be- 
comes a general or family designation ; while individuals 
demand a further naming, according to their several attri- 
butes, to distinguish them from each other. In any case, 
a name once given not only stands in the mind for the 
object to which it belongs, but grows to be representa- 
tively the equal of the object, — puts itself into the 
same conditions and relations, demands connectives and 
auxiliaries, seeks, in fine, to become as vital and important 
as the existence or action it contemplates. 

The name need not consist of one word only. It may 
be supplemented, — in fact, drawn out indefinitely. Thus 
there is secured to the latest comer in the world his 
individual right of naming. He is permitted to call the 
objects presented to him by names other than those 
already given, — names that shall correspond with his 
peculiar susceptibility, interest, and knowledge with re- 
gard to the objects. For example, " mountain " is a very 
general name. Among many mountains there is one, it 
may be, that attracts somebody's attention by its color 
or shape, and he calls it " green " or " round " mountain. 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 5 

But the mountain presents itself to multitudes of ob- 
servers in successive generations. Firm as it is, the 
mountain does not hold out unchanged. Adverse ele- 
ments are at work upon it, — now fire, now frost. At 
one time it is denuded of trees or even of soil. Again 
it is overrun with various orders of vegetation, haunted 
by tribes of animals, explored and perused by lovers of 
wild scenery, or analyzed and penetrated by the curious 
in science, to make it disclose the secrets of its forma- 
tion and contents. Wliy would not the accurate account 
of all this make just so much descriptive name or repute 
of the mountain, exactly like one's calling it green or 
round ? Thus there is brought before us the persistent 
correlation of three sorts of things, namely, outward ob- 
jects, observing minds, representative names. We find 
the most extended descriptions depending upon a mental 
exertion identical with that which originated the first 
word-element. It is the law of existence. The world's 
history is the co-ordinate development of material na- 
ture, mind, and language. Mind is the luminous centre, 
and whatever objects are presented, the word-shadow is 
sure to be cast. Be the shadow one syllable or thou- 
sands of sentences, it may be called a name. There is 
an assumed equality of a book's title and its contents. 
The detail of a descriptive catalogue is only what is 
meant by the name that sums up the collection. The 
whole creation, throughout the ages of life of which 
man is speaking, "according to his own art, as seemeth 
best to him," is conceived in Scripture as the Word 
of God, by which he awakens thought, teaching us to 
give him names, — and at length a name of majesty 
and goodness. 

Our extended sense of name implies, of course, not 



6 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

simply the multiplication of words, but the organic 
structure of language. Words are vitally related to one 
another. Otherwise they could not be made to repre- 
sent the intimate relations and lucid order of thought, 
— till they have actually grown by inflection and com- 
position, by logical and rhetorical arrangement, to the 
very form and pressure of intellectual experience. The 
naming faculty rises to a new effort when the objects 
and elements of nature are studied under conditions of 
thought connected with accumulated results and re- 
sources of investigation, — the effort indicated in scien- 
tific nomenclature. 

As speech tends to keep even pace with the intelligent 
appreciation of things, so a word having the beginning 
of its use from a certain original suggestion or starting- 
point of thought tends to hold on its way in the same 
direction. Those who use words are concerned to keep 
them lively and active, — equal to the vigor and variety 
of the objects they represent. Words in one respect are 
like the giant who was strong only when he touched the 
ground. They need to be kept in close contact with the 
realities which are the ground of their significance. But, 
if words are carried away from the real ground of their 
meaning, so as to acquire a fanciful or merely conven- 
tional force, then it happens, according to the saying 
of Bacon, " that words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back 
upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily 
entangle and pervert the judgment." ^ This applies es- 
pecially to words of comprehensive significance, that 
have their rights in part by inheritance from other 
words in other languages, — whose duties they are set 
to discharge. 

1 Works, vol. i. p. 211, — ** Advancement of Learning." 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 7 

The word ivorld, for example, has a really inexhaust- 
ible import in the English New Testament ; such, indeed, 
that it would be impossible to appreciate the general cast 
of thought to which those writings seek to introduce us, 
without particular attention to this word. Its fulness 
of meaning is due to the fact that, in our authorized ver- 
sion, the single word ivorld has taken up into itself the 
force of two Greek terms, each of immeasurable import; 
and now it will be hard for any revision to disengage 
and distribute anew the values that have been treasured 
so long in one syllable. 

It is plain that our word icorlcl, as a name for the 
sum of things, has not reached its fulness till there is a 
general consent as to what grand total is referred to. 
But when creation has disclosed the rounded system, 
and thought has embraced the same and confided it to 
this word's keeping, then, in whatever subordinate sense 
the word may be used, it is never wholly alienated from 
its supreme significance. We may have any number of 
worlds by reason of the world that includes them all, 
and by whose law they exist. Call the earth the world. 
It is not the world without its sun, moon, and stars. 
Take them away, and earth falls into chaos. Speak of 
the world of mind in distinction from the world of mat- 
ter. But it is mind in relation with matter that we 
mean. The two worlds are one. Eefer to the world 
of art or science, — the religious, the political, the social 
world. But these are not worlds apart from the grand 
total which is the world. Say there is a world of law 
in a drop of water. Yes : because the same law " pre- 
serves the stars from wrong." Any kind or order of 
world implies the world-total. Each variety of the idea 
requires the unity to constitute it. The ultimate reach 



8 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of thought which a word registers is inseparable from 
the minor phases of its meaning ; because throughout 
its gradations the word is animated by a common soul. 

Let us take now the Greek word cosmos, to whose 
properties and functions our word world has fallen heir 
in the New Testament, and see how the same law is 
illustrated. 

Cosmos seems to set out from a fundamental idea 
of orderly relation and harmony of parts, and to rise 
through humbler uses to its high significance. An orna- 
ment making an impression of harmony and beauty on 
the observer, the fine arrangement and keeping of dress, a 
well-ordered army animated by a single mind and will, — 
these are examples to indicate the kind of objects to 
which, by reason of a certain common quality, the word 
cosmos was applicable at first. But when all visible 
order is apprehended as the reign of invisible law, when 
the heavens and the earth with all their hosts are seen 
to exhibit a harmony so pervading as to awaken the be- 
lief that the order of nature is unbroken, — then there 
is not only this or that thing which may be called a 
cosmos; there is the cosmos, the totality of order and 
beauty, the revelation of transcendent Intelligence and 
Power. Let this ultimate idea be once in the mind, 
and it takes possession of the word also. Throughout 
the range of its minor uses the word carries henceforth 
the grand cosmical conception, and refers the least ex- 
ample of real order to universal law. Indeed, the word 
has a tendency to give up its primitive applications, as 
too little in keeping with its great calling as a name for 
the material universe. 

It is natural that the words " world " and " cosmos," 
though starting from different original suggestions, in 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 9, 

different portions of the human family, at different times, 
should come to be the equivalents of each other, since 
both reach a unity of significance in the sum of things. 
Of course this unity overrules all distinctions ; and, 
moreover, in the intellectual process of comparison and 
translation, either word would easily appropriate to itself 
any power of suggestion that might once have been 
peculiar to the other. 

Having before shown that the word world is not de- 
graded from its high service by lending itself to limited 
conceptions, it is hardly necessary to remark how nat- 
urally it comes down to well-known and well-inhabited 
regions, — for example, in the New Testament, the realms 
ruled by Caesar Augustus, — or to remind ourselves that 
we have an " old world " according to the measure of former 
knowledge, and a " new world," the glory of modern dis- 
covery. It is perhaps more needful to mention that sev- 
eral places in the Greek Testament give oikoumene, — 
very properly rendered "world," and pointing particu- 
larly to the earth's inhabitants, — the household world 
of a period contemplated as vitally interested ha events 
described. 

But our word world is more than a name for the ma- 
terial universe ; it is a name for universal history also. 
The world is not a consummation of harmony and beauty, 
that admits of no change. It is an enduring world, and 
still a world of life, growth, and vicissitude. The world 
exists for a purpose, and that purpose implies the reason 
for its continuance. While we have been here and there, 
going through with various forms of personal experience, 
all things have moved with us in so steady a round as 
to afford us exact measures for different parts of com- 
mon duration, — signs, seasons, day&, and years. 



10 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Now, in Greek, there is not only a word to represent 
the world as existing in space {cosmos), — the nursery and 
theatre of life, — there is also a word (alcov, — " aeon ") 
to sum up the invisible progress of life itself, and 
stand for the inner world of conscious being and col- 
lective history. Times measured mechanically and regis- 
tered punctually, by means of regular movements of 
bodies in space, give an outward and abstract notion of 
continuance ; but life has a chronology of its own, that 
cannot be tabulated, and the ceons are measured only in 
themselves. Therefore, those who, in giving us the Eng- 
lish New Testament, merged cosmos and ceon in one word 
world, failed to mark adequately those ages on ages, 
somewhat distinguishable yet really dateless, that ensue 
by historic development upon the original creation. 

The Greek word aio7i represents, commonly, a thing 
of life, having the law of its duration in itself, not inde- 
pendently, but subject to universal elements and laws 
of being. It denotes not time in the abstract, but a life- 
time — as of a man, a family, a nation, a race. Let the 
term be applied to particular things, and there may be as 
many seons as there are objects, having each a vital con- 
stitution, upon which, under general conditions of life, 
the measure of its existence depends. Every aeon may 
be signalized by outward phenomena of life whose times 
and changes may be noted. But the interior j)rocess of 
life, the very essence of the aeon, is too subtile for chro- 
nometers ; and it suggests rather than defines its own 
limits. It is in virtue of this vital quality that the word 
rises above the applications of detail, and reaches a com- 
prehensive and even supernatural significance. Thus, 
using instead of ceon the familiar word age, we may 
speak of the age of plants or animals, individuals or 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 11 

species; we may contemplate the age of governments, 
systems of thought, modes of worship ; but we reach the 
unity of finite duration in the sum of things. Every 
living creature has its own period, and all creatures com- 
bine to constitute the living age in general, — that reality 
of unmeasured existence which is the world of far-reach- 
ing history. The scientist has to do chiefly with the 
world as cosmos ; the historian has to do chiefly with 
the world as ceoii. The cosmos is attributed to God as 
Creator; the ccoii is oftener referred to God as Provi- 
dence, Euler, or Eedeemer. When the world is spoken 
of as one whole, without reference to the varying phases 
of its physical and moral order, it is cosmos. When the 
world is distmguished from itself, so to speak, — when it 
is contemplated as many worlds in as many successive 
periods, as the world that now is or the world that is to 
come, as the world beginning or the world ending, — 
then it is ceon. 

" Through faith we understand that the worlds were 
framed ;"i but it is important to understand also that 
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is referring to 
ceonian worlds, — not to the cosmos merely. There is 
the conception of a sin incompatible with forgiveness, 
whether in this world or in that which is to come.^ 
And both worlds are aeons, periods of moral government. 
" The harvest is the end of the world ; " ^ " so shall it be 
in the end of this world ; " * " what shall be the sign of 
thy coming, and of the end of the world ? " ^ In these in- 
stances, not to mention others,^ it is the consummation 

1 Heb. xi. 3. 2 Matt. xii. 32. 3 ^att. xiii. 39. 

4 Matt. xiii. 40. ^ Matt. xxiv. 3. 

6 Mark x. 30 ; Luke xviii. 30 ; xx. 34, 35 ; 1 Cor. x. 11 ; Gal. i. 4 ; 
Eph. i. 21; 1 Tim. vi. 17; 2 Tim. iv. 10; Titus ii. 12; Heb. i. 2; 
vi. 5 ; ix. 26. 



12 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of the 8eon, or world-age, which is referred to, — a con- 
summation by no means of necessity final in such a 
sense that another world-age may not be expected to 
emerge from the one that is ready to pass away. 

Thus far we have reached no aeon whose nature does 
not admit the possibility of limits, albeit to forecast or 
definitely to mark these limits is not given to finite 
minds. Ages arrive and pass in a movement of incom- 
prehensible reality. The ages of ages, surpassing all 
reach of imagination, do not carry the mark of absolute 
duration. The metaphysical eternity is that which the 
ages of ages are not, and to which they can bear no 
rational proportion. It is the antithesis, not the syn- 
thesis, of limited periods. The wheeling of planets is as 
irrelevant to the abstract idea of eternity as the ticking 
of the clock. 

Moreover, if it be true that ceon signifies properly not 
abstract duration, but an enduring life, then the law of 
thought demands absolute Being, or else it admits of no 
absolute ceon. Plato, in the Timaeus, affords an example 
of what was the law of his thinking. There the Creator 
is the Eternal, let us say the Eternity. The created 
universe is after an eternal pattern. But "time," he 
says, "was generated with the universe, in order that, 
being produced together, they might together be dis- 
solved, if their dissolution should ever happen." Time, 
according to Plato, is an image of eternity, — aionos 
eikon. But both eternity and time are conceived as real- 
ized in beings. The image of self -existence is in the ever- 
present now of conscious life, of which we do not say 
that it begins or ends ; and so all ages of life, past or to 
come, afford a shadowy suggestion of measureless exist- 
ence. In this way of thinking, all passing times and 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 13 

numbered eras have their life and law from the Eternal. 
True, the supreme ^on, transcending all finite thought, 
has been thought of differently by different minds. Some, 
given to speculation, taking their notions as the higher 
sphere of their knowledge, have ventured far, and even 
thought to find proceeding from the depth of unbegotten 
Being a whole hierarchy of spiritual aeons on the way 
down to worlds and ages here below. But the pretence 
of knowledge in what is beyond experience is sure to 
encounter the reaction of minds predominated by an op- 
posite tendency, — minds slow in trusting themselves to 
a speculative drift, for fear of being borne away from solid 
reality. Each of the tendencies referred to, however, is 
essential to human nature. The two are developed to- 
gether in every mature person, though not always in 
stable equilibrium. Only by the action of both, exciting 
and restraining each other, is the full-orbed revelation 
of history possible. Yet, while the too presuming and 
the too sceptical, the gnostics and the agnostics, may be 
alike losers for a time in something of sober truth which 
a rational comprehension may possess, neither the one 
class nor the other can avoid the logic of words. To 
both (icon stands for existence, having a law of enduring 
life within, — implying a duration not to be mathemati- 
cally demonstrated, no matter whether the existence be 
wholly of ideal stuff, or of the palpable material by 
which the senses are addressed. But the aeons of reve- 
lation are not aeons of philosophic fancy. They are 
genuine world-ages, whose secret is life, organic law, 
holding on its way beneath and beyond the shows of 
things, binding different elements and existences in 
unity, and so opening a broad avenue of thought to one 
supreme Being, the Source of life, — in all, through all, 
over all. 



14 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

The study of the New Testament ceon cannot come 
to a satisfactory end, however, without bringing in the 
adjective formed from the noun. As we find seons 
within aeons, aeons before aeons, and aeons succeeding 
aeons ; as every aeon may be looked upon as an age of 
ages, and all aeons are conceived in the New Testament 
as conditioned with respect to other aeons, according to 
the eternal purpose and operation of God \ it is hard 
to imagine that the adjective ceonian could be alienated 
from the objective variety and fiuxional nature of what 
it grows from What belongs to unseen life, universal 
causation, organic law, we shojiild naturally think, might 
be called emphatically ceonian. So, at any rate, St. Paul 
seems to think, when, speaking of the hidden and surviv- 
ing man in distinction from transitory forms of organ- 
ization, he declares that "the things which are seen 
are temporal, but the things wliich are not seen are 
ceonian!' ^ 

As ceonian does not recognize beginning or ending in 
terms of time, so it does not deny beginning or ending 
in so far as either may be impHed in the proper concep- 
tion of elements described as aeonian. In classic Greek 
the life of a man is referred to as an aeon. A man's life 
is also an age of ages. St. Paul speaks of what was the 
character of his life at different periods. All the ele- 
ments of his being were childish during the child-age. 
And, although he does not note the moment when child- 
hood ended, it is plain that it did end ; for, when he 
became a man, his life took on the characteristics of an- 
other age. Now this presents a perfect likeness to the 
manner of speaking in the New Testament about the 
aeon of mankind, — that is, the world-ages. 

1 2 Cor. iv. 18. 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 15 

In the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians the«-e is set forth an inner reality and progress of 
human existence that was expressly "according to the 
course (seon) of this world (cosmos) " as governed by 
invisible principles and agencies working in the souls 
of men ; and this seonian experience was so ahen and 
uisensible to the highest revelation of divine life as to 
be described under the figure of death. The immortal 
life, the perfect law of being, the Ephesians had not re- 
ceived by tradition from their fathers, but were relatively 
"dead in trespasses and sins." This seonian death, how- 
ever, was to be Hmited and annulled by new life commu- 
nicated through the revelation of Jesus Christ ; and, the 
impartation of the divine life to that aeon was to avail 
for the ages (aeons) to come, that God might show them 
" the exceeding riches of his grace " through the same 
revelation of Jesus Christ. Thus the seonian life, that 
is such by way of eminence as being imparted to men 
by the eternal Spirit, struggles with and overcomes the 
seonian principles that are negative to itself, superseding 
the aeons of ignorance and error due to man's immaturity 
and proneness to low appetites, with other aeons that de- 
clare man's resurrection and joint heirship with the Son 
of God. 

As certainly as the Creator desires to correct the mis- 
takes and perversities of his offspring, and thus to take 
away their sins, so certainly he desires that punishment 
may give place to those moral results which punishment 
contemplates. Accordingly the twenty-fifth chapter of 
Matthew sets before us the coming of the Son of Man 
in the glory of his revelation as involving not only a 
life-giving energy but a judicial process. The aeonian 
life evinced in love and service, to whomsoever done, 



16 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

meets approval and reward in the larger fellowship of 
aeonian life to come ; while those who recognized no 
divine call in the sufferings of their fellow-men are sent 
away into an seonian punishment. We know at once 
that this is not a punishment to be summed up in a 
sentence, which is to be mechanically executed within 
punctual limits of time. What is seonian is revealed 
under relations of cause and effect known as organic 
law ; and, herein is the common quality of seonian pun- 
ishment and seonian life. Neither is a thing of arbi- 
trary prescription. Manifested in individual experience, 
— not, it may be, without distinction of times, — both 
are conditioned and determined in the nature of things, 
which is another name for the reign of God. Having 
recognized, therefore, the common relation of both life 
and punishment to the divine energy and authority, we 
are bound also not to overlook the distinction between 
the two. The life of love is divine and eternal as having 
its source in God, — its perfection in harmony with the 
divine character. The endurance of punishment (kolasis), 
on the contrary, is the mark of an immature nature,' ox 
of a perverse will, needing to be changed and super- 
seded. It belongs to an economy of teaching and cor- 
rection. The suffering experienced enforces a just 
demand for reformation of conduct, and so declares 
the discipline of creative Goodness with reference to a 
moral end. The end achieved, the experience of punish- 
ment has passed into the development of character. 

If seonian life may annul the death of sin, so may 
the law of love do away with the discipline of chastise- 
ment that has gained its moral end. The adjective quite 
overdoes its function when, instead of qualifying its sub- 
stantive, it contradicts the very element of truth which 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 17 

the substantive represents. But suppose punishment 
should aggravate the moral distemper : what then ? May 
not punishment, which is negative to the perfection 
of existence, be negative also to the perpetuity of exist- 
ence that cannot be reconciled with love ? Failing of 
its moral end, may not positive punishment reach a nat- 
ural limit in the cancelling of an abnormal being, just 
as sickness ends in death? At least, there is nothing 
in the conception of punishment as seonian to force 
upon us the conclusion that the Creator is determined 
to communicate his immortality of being to those who 
will only outrage the law of well-being. The experience 
of punishment may be conceived as reaching either a 
moral or a physical limit according to divine law, with- 
out the least sacrifice of its seonian character. The 
only remaining hypothesis, that of incorrigible character 
and endless being, needs no discussion. But, as we are 
dealing now, not with doctrine, but with the use of a 
word, I will call attention to a text having no direct 
bearing upon any disputed tenet. It is the three last 
verses of the Epistle to the Eomans, — the concluding 
ascription to Him who is able to establish believers in 
the gospel, " according to the revelation of the mystery 
which hath been kept in silence through times eternal 
(seonian), but now is manifested, and by the scriptures 
of the prophets, according to the commandment of the 
eternal (seonian) God." The seonian times expressly 
limited by revelation, and exactly noted in the phrase 
" since the world began," — what proportion have they to 
the eternity of the seonian God ? 

Having in our language a name for the sum of things, 
and endeavoring to verify the use and range of the name 
in the New Testament, we have found our world to be 

2 



18 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

cosmical and seonian. From the masses that make up 
the world of space we have passed to the living reahties 
that make up the world of history, and have recognized 
the tendency of human minds to rise above dependent 
existences to the thought of one absolute Being. The 
conception of God transfigures our worlds. They pass 
into the universe. The ages are inspired with boundless 
meaning. The name that properly marks the periods 
of world-life connotes the ever-existent Originator and 
Governor of all things. The most ephemeral organism 
has life from the Eternal, and is an seon by itself. But 
the word ceon receives a consecration which withdraws 
it from common associations. Taking lower forms of 
being into silent partnership with higher, and marking 
all life-periods with the seonian stamp as "times and 
seasons which the Father hath put in his own power," 
mon becomes a comprehensive name, and is set apart to 
high service in connection with those cycles of being 
that are God's revelation in the human race. 

In fine, that man should conceive of outward nature 
as the building and temple of God by reason of responses 
in his soul from the inner sanctuary, which responses he 
utters in hallowed names and sacred writings, is an aus- 
picious token of man's place and calling in the universe. 
It indicates his birthright, — to " dwell in the house of 
the Lord all the days of his life, to behold the beauty 
of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." All truth is 
man's province ; his vocation is discipleship. His earlier 
conceptions may be crude and mistaken. But if he 
knows but little of the cosmical world, he himself is 
part and parcel of the seonian creation; and when the 
fulness of times has developed the motive and tendency 
of the divine working, then assurance begins to take the 



SPEECH AND WORDS. 19 

place of doubt. The movement of humanity according 
to a ruling Eeason becomes more prophetic than the 
prophets. The dispensation which culminates in the 
divine Man gives the Word of perfection for the future 
of mankind. It introduces us to the sphere of the 
Father's spiritual creation, — to the reign of God, which 
is within us. 

Without assuming man's destiny as bound in a neces- 
sary immortality, — since it seems to be the implication 
both of Nature and Scripture that an existence given by 
the Creator can be cancelled by the same Power, — we 
may say at least that every intelligent agent is naturally 
bound, and morally free, to make trial of life, that life 
may the more effectually make proof of him. Pupils 
of nature, yet represented in Scripture as heirs of God, 
each of us is called to study in his own way the natural 
elements and the inspirations from above which go into 
the growth of character and the maturing of destiny. 
Taking Nature and Scripture to be witnesses for each 
other, we can examine them as to the situation and 
experience of the race to which we belong. We can 
interrogate them ; namely, — 

I. As to our common subjection under the constraints 
of cosmical conditions and social governance, — The 
World Tutelage. 

II. As to the presumably peculiar inability of primi- 
tive man to cope at once with the problems confronting 
him, and the special danger of his yielding, from unwise 
choice, to physical tendencies against the higher law of 
his being, — The Fall. 

III. As to that faith and loyalty in man through 
which he is open to suggestions from above, and can 
move in a manner to be held approved, reasonable, and 



20 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

acceptable in a provisional way, — in default of advanced 
knowledge, faultless obedience, or ideal devotion, — The 
Peinciple of Justification. 

IV. As to the development of man's apprehension 
and experience of the not-good as necessarily correla- 
tive to his progressive knowledge of the good ; together 
with his possibly wilful violation of faith with respect 
even to obligations on which his physical welfare 
depends, — The Manifestation of Evil. 

y. As to the motive and method of man's recon- 
ciliation with God in the revelation of his character 
and will, and of his deliverance from the errors and cor- 
ruptions of a comparatively irresponsible and childish 
career, — The Law of Atonement. 

VI. As to the judgments in which faith is appealed 
to, knowledge increased, and law enforced, till the con- 
summation of the world-history, — Crises in the Pro- 
cess OF Eedemption. 

These are indissoluble parts of the Creator's teaching. 
They indicate the orbit of divine revelation as conceived 
in Scripture, and they mark the high road of human 
experience. They combine all ruling conceptions proper 
to human nature, irrespective of any limits, whether in 
time or space. 



PART FIRST. 

THE WORLD TUTELAGE. 



" Now I say tliat the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth noth- 
ing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutoi^ and 
governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, 
when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the 
world." 

Galatians iv. 1, 2. 

"Quid enim sibi volimt multimodae formidines, quae cohibendis 

parvnloruni vanitatibus adhibentur i Quid psedagogi, quid magistri, 
quid ferulae, quid lora, quid virgee, quid disciplina ilia qua Scriptura 
sancta dicit dilecti filii latera tundenda, ne crescat indomitus, doma- 
rique jam durus aut vix possit, aut fortasse nee possit ? " 

St. Augustixe : De Ci^dtate Dei, hb. xxii. c. 22. 



PART FIRST. 

THE WOELD TUTELAGE. 



CHAPTEK I. 

TUTELAGE A LAW OF NATURE. 

'T^HE common schooling of life in the world is the 
•*• basis of man's study and teaching since the world 
began. As the world grows in age the schooling of the 
world gains in scope and effectiveness by the subordina- 
tion of special achievements to the common instruction. 
The beginner in life, content if not wearied at first with 
the most rudimentary exercises, is by and by full of ex- 
citement at finding that even these are his introduction 
to a limitless learning. And, as if to meet his growing 
need of guidance, the enlightened souls and choice writ- 
ings of the race are peculiar by reason of their unlimited 
range of thought. They salute the eternal Wisdom in 
the progress of ages, and find, contiguous to our earthly 
domain, an invisible realm of spiritual activity, whither 
every generation of mankind migrates in its turn. Thus, 
from teachings and efforts that have made life what it is 
at any time or place, there results the discipline of life 
into which at birth every human being is entered. 

But the distinction between teachers and taught, 
governors and governed, in human society is not abso- 
lute. The power exemplified in parental influence and 
control finds public expression in various forms of gov- 



24 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

eminent, civil or ecclesiastical, that stand for social 
order and moral regulation. Yet this general exercise 
of power is always checked. Nature is made to out- 
grow institutions. All government struggles with the 
reactions of advancing life, till the advancing life pre- 
vails, only to give way in its turn. The sovereign can- 
not govern his people without being governed by them ; 
as the parent cannot justly guide and restrain the child, 
without learning how much the child is commissioned 
to guide and restrain the parent. All teaching involves 
the effort and resistance by which the teacher also is 
taught. Thus it is that under organic law, which is the 
expression of creative wisdom, all the life of man defines 
itself as tutelage. The conscious subjection and docility 
of the moment is typical of a continuous experience of 
life, wherein the destiny of mankind is never to escape 
entirely from the earlier physical limitations, and never 
to carry out to completeness the later spiritual inten- 
tions. The ideals of perfection are for a higher order of 
development than is accorded to mankind on earth. 

The experience of life puts personal faculties and 
character to such constant proof, that a man's whole 
career in the world is often looked upon as a probation ; 
and, as holding a necessary and just relation to his whole 
career in a world to come. But probation is not an arbi- 
trary enactment, but something in the course of nature. 
Therefore it needs to be guarded at the outset from con- 
ventional constructions ; and, especially, with reference 
to what Bishop Butler has set forth as " the general doc- 
trine of religion, that our present life is a state of pro- 
bation for a future one." ^ This general doctrine does not 
justly involve anything artificial or arbitrary. But it 
has been systematically construed as ascribing the limits 
1 Analogy, part i. ch. iv. 



TUTELAGE A LAW OF NATURE. 25 

of physical life to a spiritual trial, whose limits cannot 
be experimentally ascertained, and are not definitely- 
revealed. 

Our personal probation, as a verifiable reality deter- 
mined by our spiritual constitution and the law of the 
universe, is not measured by our physical life. On 
the contrary, it is reasonably apprehended as fulfilling 
itself according to a progress of the spirit into whatever 
conditions the spirit may pass. That which begins and 
ends with physical life is the physical trial, — the strug- 
gle for life which man exhibits in common with the ani- 
mal creation. In this trial success or survival is seen to 
have no paramount relation to spiritual character. Life 
often ends before spiritual probation can have begun, 
as well as at all stages of moral trial, without refer- 
ence to its fulfilment. Therefore, to call "our present 
life," meaning our life in the body, "a state of proba- 
tion for a future one," which by implied antithesis is a 
state of retribution without probation, is a partial use 
of the analogy contemplated. For, if we are to reason 
of unending life from the analogy of our earthly exist- 
ence, we can do no less than take the whole testimony. 
Conduct in the present life is found to develop retribu- 
tive consequences. Hence retributive consequences may 
not unreasonably be expected to disclose themselves in 
the future life. But in the present life retributive con- 
sequences are an essential element of probation. Then, 
by analogy, retributive consequences must be a mark of 
probation equally in the future life. 

Or, to put the thought so as to recognize the general 
relation of the present life to the future life, without 
denying any spiritual facts which may possibly be com- 
mon to both, let us ask : If the whole life, after death, is 



26 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

conceived as retributive in relation to the whole life in 
the body, while the whole life in the body is conceived 
as probationary in relation to the whole life after death, 
is there anything in this general relation which should 
or can contradict either the retributive experience of the 
present life, or the probationary character of the future 
life, considered by itself ? What valid objection to infer- 
ring that the future life is probationary in being retribu- 
tive, since the present life is confessedly retributive in 
being probationary ? But an administration conceived 
as judicially cancelling all liberty or power of personal 
reformation on the part of offenders, whose personal ref- 
ormation is demanded by eternal law and prompted by 
corrective experience, involves an absolute contradic- 
tion, — the contradiction of the supreme Lawgiver by 
the supreme Judge. 

Therefore, whatever modifications in the elements 
and conditions of moral experience may ensue upon the 
crisis of death, we are naturally forbidden to assume a 
pnori that character will crystallize into immovable 
destiny at the moment of our deliverance from the con- 
straints of mortality. The nature of man indicates the 
contrasts of character which his trial may determine; 
not any point in a personal career at which character is 
no longer capable of change. Hence we rationally look 
at the nature of our probation for a theory of its 
limits, not at assumed limits of probation for our theory 
of its nature. 



CHAPTEE II. 

COSMICAL TUTELAGE. 

T TAYiyrG premised what would be misplaced argu- 
-^ -*• ment, were it not for the importance of clearing 
our range of thought from obstructions, we have no 
more to do with the abstract idea of probation. That 
idea at once pervades the whole reality of the world- 
tutelage. It belongs to the constitution of moral gov- 
ernment. Any statute of limitations is an incidental 
matter, that must present its own credentials, and keep 
its own place. Our preliminary considerations pass at 
once into a general statement, which contains in sum 
the truth we desire further to unfold. . 

Man's normal development as a moral being starts 
from the least degree of self-control with the greatest 
degree of outward constraint, and moves on toward the 
least degree of outward constraint and the greatest degree 
of self-control. 

This direction of development, if it can be verified, 
infers the ruling purpose of man's training ; namely, 
that deliberate choice may more and more adjust itself 
to the requirements of law, until personal aims shall 
coalesce with universal truth in final maturity of char- 
acter and general harmony of being. 

Material nature is bound fast in its own law, that the 



28 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

free activity of man may learn by trial what support and 
what resistance to expect. As material nature is sub- 
jected to the imperfect treatment of man by the creative 
will, so also by the same will is man in subjection under 
the tutelage of material nature. 

If we look at man with respect to his cosmical envi- 
ronment simply, deferring for the present any considera- 
tion of his growth, we find him even in the fulness of his 
powers not a little dwarfed in comparison with the ele- 
ments he is required to deal with. The magnificence of 
the home with the profusion of its treasures is certainly 
a testimony to the quality of the occupant ; but should 
not the occupant be master of his possessions ? Yet man 
is a pupil — never done with learning to call things 
presented to him by their right names. Face to face 
with all the world contains, his possessions are too grand 
and vital for his faculties. " What is it ? " is the riddle 
which nature is proposing in every object; and the 
answer is at no little peril of life. To find out what a 
thing is, and to name it well, much as it concerns 
man's destiny, is far from being an instinctive action of 
powers that unerringly fulfil their own law. It is an 
effort demanding good-will and patient attention, while 
after the best endeavors the secrets to be known are 
infinitely beyond the most penetrating intelligence. The 
more our answers seem to be allowed, the deeper the 
mysteries into which nature's questioning withdraws. 
We have no sooner proved the reality of our powers than 
we have become aware of their deficiency. Fresh dis- 
coveries are required to correct previous mistakes ; and 
other mistakes are incident to fresh discoveries. In the 
midst of over-curious researches we are under correction 
as to the simplest problems of life. 



COSMIC AL TUTELAGE. 29 

Moreover, that primacy of intellect, whose privilege it 
is to look deep into the nature of things, is for very few. 
The multitudes have their faculties chiefly occupied in 
seeking the satisfaction of animal craving. '' What shall 
we eat?" "Wliat shall we drink?" "Wherewithal 
shall we be clothed?" These are the preoccupations 
that absorb the energies of mankind, and hold them 
back from higher aims. Nature holds out her gifts for 
man to appreciate. With other orders of living things 
man is invited to take what is suited to him. Only, his 
choice is that of a superior being. The hungry rapacity 
from hand to mouth must learn to wait upon diligent 
and judicious selection. What the offered thing is, even 
as to its commonest use, it is not for momentary sensa- 
tion or the accompanying suggestion of thought fully to 
tell ; and its final significance may be infinitely far to 
seek. Let man try to know any bulk or any atom, and 
the more he knows the more is he baffled by the universe 
of which his inquiry takes hold. Thor thought to drain 
the drinking-horn of Utgard-Loki at the first pull, not 
being aware that it was connected with the sea : a sym- 
bol this of what the stoutest personal energy amounts 
to as against the magnitude and coherency of material 
nature. 

What is it ? The question is, first of all, practical. 
What is to be done with it ? To what account can it be 
turned ? The vision that came to the entranced Peter 
for his spiritual direction was not unconnected with his 
physical wants, — was indeed substantially the every- 
day vision of mankind in general : " All manner of four- 
footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping 
things, and fowls of the air." To arise, to kill and eat, 
to taste the tree's fruit, to use things according to their 



30 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

nature, is on the way to higher knowledge. Though the 
cuckoo name itself in its note, still naturalists and poets 
listen long to know what the name may mean. And no 
matter how many things may be said or sung about it, 
the bird-note remains untranslated, — a voice that wan- 
ders through all years to call forth a response from all 
singers. 

So, in general, while most men find their poetry of 
life in the practical arts of life, a few take the hint of 
nature in a higher sense. They give us masterpieces in 
architecture, sculpture, painting, literature. But nature 
is mistress of all the masters. Their works have a pecu- 
liar finish, but a minor dignity. Nature's works are of 
their own kind, — things of life, of original design. 
Man's monuments decay, and fall into neglect. Then, 
it may be, nature adopts them as her own. But in 
majesty of building, in breathing forms, in glory of color, 
in mystical voices, nature is ever fresh and productive. 
The cosmical teaching grows more mysterious as it pro- 
ceeds. It bears witness to its source. The most divinely 
gifted of men are the most apt to recognize a supernatural 
in the natural. Man in his minority, in the primitive trial 
of his powers, while giving proof of his pupilage in every 
experiment he makes, is still quickened, inspired, in- 
structed by the infinite Wisdom speaking through the 
things that are made, whether they be things in earth or 
things in the infinitude of the sky. 



B 



CHAPTEK III. 

IONIAN TUTELAGE. 

UT we must think of man as growing, — as exhibit- 
ing a personal and collective development, to which 



no limits of time can be assigned. Here at once cosmical \ 

conditions become subsidiary to social environment. The 

house is made for the family, not the family for the j 

house. Man may make trial of some powers, as an j 

inhabitant of the planet,* but even this trial, and es- j 

pecially the formation of character connected with it, i 

belongs to us as members of the human family. We 

take conscious intellectual and moral training from I 

those with whom we come into intellectual and moral ' 

relations. 

Every child of our race is brought into the world at 
the lowest degree of its capabilities. In this extreme of j 

minority man is under a reign of social law. Sponta- j 

neous self-assertion yields of necessity to pressures from i 

without. There is no force in infancy to sustain a prac- | 

tical conflict with adult powers. The child is set to j 

forming habits under the sway of ideals which it knows 
nothing about, in order that those ideals, when they shall j 

have taken possession of the child's nature, may have the 
advantage of trained and obedient service from subordi- 
nate faculties. Not any formal correctness is sought at 



32 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

first ; but a discipline of powers that may result in ap- 
proved modes of action by and by. Yet there are no 
perfect masters even of this primary discipline. The 
chiefs of households and leaders of society address them- 
selves to various problems of conduct ; but the solution 
is in no case a thing of outward demonstration. Last, as 
well as first, the demand is for docility. One man's well- 
doing may furnish suggestion and motive to another man, 
but not a formula of righteousness. The child, whose 
praise is that it does not rebel against natural control, 
rebukes the adult, who resists the spiritual admonition 
given him for warning or direction. The moral of life, 
to those experienced in their own imperfections and the 
errors of mankind, is that they should be born anew 
and become little children through a spiritual inspira- 
tion from the Father, to whom they owe their being. 
Our spiritual development demands a discipline superior 
to that of natural guardians. Man realizes at length a 
certain personal function, in which he goes not only be- 
yond the cosmos, but beyond the authorities and influ- 
ences that make up the age in which he lives, and is 
drawn into the presence of the eternal Power, — Source 
and End of all beginning and ending things. 

As the thought of God comes to man in his contem- 
plation of outward nature, so there is a communica- 
tion and growth of the same thought in connection with 
social discipline. The thought seems to arrive by natural 
and universal suggestion, to be subsequently shaped by 
outward images or quickened by inward teaching. But 
whatever may be said of the origin of man's religious 
conceptions, we are sure that the idea of God asserts a 
power both in the thinker and over thought. It becomes 
a common element of spiritual trial, a law in the inter- 



JEONIAN TUTELAGE. 33 

pretation of things, an assurance, not to be slighted, of 
supernatural Eeason ruling in all destinies. 

"VVe are obliged, therefore, to contemplate the growth 
and experience of mankind, not only with respect to ma- 
terial elements and the physical economy, not only with 
respect to society in the different phases through which 
it may pass, but above all with reference to that law of 
the rational spirit according to which an invisible and 
unlimited Power is recognized, under whatever names, as 
affirmed in creation and history. Such are the grand as- 
pects of our schooling in the world. It is not for man 
to throw off the physical, social, or religious regimen. 
To live by suitable nourishment and protection of the 
body, to live as belonguig to our kind, to live as the 
creatures of our Creator, — this is simply to live. 

But life has successive phases of development, whether 
in the individual or in society. Though all principles of 
life may be present in germ from the beginning, still 
their growth is such as to exhibit varied proportions of 
knowledge and successive types of activity. The great 
motives of action come to their practical predominance 
in a regular order of time. If duties have a transcendent 
range, and are liable to come into mutual conflict, they 
may well wait a little upon one another. The primary 
and most pressing demands receive the earliest attention, 
that the more important obligations may employ the 
more developed power and mature judgment in their 
discharge. 

The different functions of society are not sharply dis- 
criminated at first. The religious practice may be min- 
gled with industrial and social habits under a patriarchal 
authority, that commands the children and the household 
after it in all the round of service. The tribe compelled 

3 



34 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

to maintain its own existence in more or less hostile com- 
petition with other tribes will not furnish its offspring 
with the protection of stable institutions. The patri- 
archal authority is a primitive tutelage. In the progress 
of civilization this tutelage is not superseded, but supple- 
mented. Families and tribes are reduced to harmony 
under a common administration of authority. Yet the 
kingdom, bringing order and comity out of confusion and 
contention, affords no perfect law ; though it may justly 
claim to be better than the anarchy which it supersedes. 
The king may do what the patriarch cannot do. He 
may not only organize a more comprehensive regulation 
of common affairs, but he may encourage and secure the 
special institution of religious functions. Civil order, 
however, tends to become universal. States incorporate 
other states, as tribes reduce to subjection other tribes. 
The imperial ruler takes his turn; and, with a genius 
for conquest and government, controls powers that had 
been foreign and hostile, extending to customs and wor- 
ships before estranged a common recognition. But, 
though empires may accomplish what other forms of 
government cannot undertake, has any empire exhibited 
the consummate type of society ? Can more be expected 
of the empire than that it shall surpass in justice and 
magnanimity the powers which it holds in check? Is 
it anything but a larger school, in which the pupils may 
be brought on towards that inward and universal revela- 
tion of law, which will have perfect individuals as the 
constituents of perfect society, and regards personal duty 
to God, the supreme Euler, as including all duties to 
one's self or to one's kind ? 

It is evident, therefore, not only that human nature 
is constituted to develop religious institutions in con- 



JEONIAN TUTELAGE. 35 

nection with industrial or political organization but 
also that religion, being first in rank as regards the 
realities and aims contemplated, is for that very reason 
last to reach its full power and expression in the order 
of successive developments. Eeligious institutions come 
to maturity in history as an endeavor to fill out the 
human ideal and destiny to its ultimate possibility, — 
the possibility of communion with the divine Source of 
being. 

Is it true, then, that in rehgious institutions man has 
found a perfect guidance and restraint ? ISTay ; if we 
identify religion with its institutions, we are compelled 
to ask, from what evils has religion been able wholly to 
deliver man, and to what evils has it not been able at 
times to persuade him ? In the sphere of religion the 
world-tutelage has shown itself most disastrously une- 
qual to its aim. It has ever, in seizing upon the high- 
est authority, furnished the most flagrant examples of 
what is not the law of perfection. It has compelled 
the divinest personal illumination to confirm its testi- 
mony with the most ignominious sufferings. Nor has it 
been able to guard the sanctuary of conscience in unde- 
veloped natures from formality and hypocrisy. An 
institution or discipline accommodated to the habits and 
capacities of imperfect creatures is of necessity below 
the standard of ideal wisdom; nor can it do absolute 
justice to the claims of even the humblest learners. 
What is it that outward law has made perfect ? In the 
administration of outward law, wisdom is shown in not 
being wise overmuch,' — in not transgressing the narrow 
limits of provisional jurisdiction. 

We have to confess, moreover, that far from reaching 
anything like perfection in our earthly training, the very 



36 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

conditions and gradations of onr progress, sucli as it is, 
are the occasion of ever-fresh ebullitions of passionate 
egotism and partisan desire. Taking his chance with 
his kind, man appears in space and in time according to 
a natural movement of creation. If he belongs to the 
whole school of life, he belongs immediately to his own 
class. But the whole school being not wise, the differ- 
ent classes compare themselves among themselves, and 
measure themselves by themselves, to some useful pur- 
pose certainly, but with much injustice. The less ad- 
vanced have little appreciation of their superiors ; the 
more advanced are wanting in respect for those below 
them. Peoples full of prejudices about gods of the hills 
and of the valleys, gods of rivers or of the sea, divinities 
of woods, caves, fields, and dwellings, have a training, it 
may be of many generations, before them, if they are to 
reach the grand and simple conception of one God, from 
whom all things have their being and law. But in the 
elevation and zeal of faith in one God, believers are apt 
to feel that idolatrous nations are enemies to be de- 
stroyed or subjugated. The faithful, as they think them- 
selves, with God upon their side, are infinitely in the 
majority of strength ; how should they not conceive 
themselves as having an equal preponderance of rights ? 
It is the fault of faith to interpret the government of the 
world according to its own views ; till, in due time, the 
schooling of life corrects this natural assumption, and 
shows that all degrees of service are needed, — that no 
unkind pretensions are tolerated. Those reckoned low 
in the scale of being are taught to look upward. The 
elevated are set to learn condescension. To all are the 
lessons of righteousness. 

The child of nature, whose strength is from touching 



jEonian tutelage, 37 

the groimd, is naturally driven to disgust and desperation 
by the cunning arts of a selfishness more disciplined, if 
not more aggressive, than his own, which he makes proof 
of in his civilized fellow-man. The adventurous pioneer 
of civilization, on the contrary, finds the simple savage 
no fellow of his.; but practically assigns him a middle 
rank between the wild beast and the foul fiend. Up to 
a certain point the mutual acquaintance of the two is apt 
to force the growth of mutual distrust and hostility, 
dooming the sentiments of humanity and religion on 
either side to a corresponding depression or distortion. 

Let the religious power come in to compose the quarrel. 
Let that spiritual conviction and organization which 
represents divine law and human fellowship — the best 
motives and rules for living together — mediate between 
imperial enterprise and barbaric obstruction. Cannot 
those in chartered communion with the infinite Father 
mete out approximate justice to contending children? 
But here the rehgious power is an interested party, not 
an impartial mediator ; and, though it should claim to 
sit in judgment or to make reconciliation, it would inevi- 
tably open the way to other divisions and conflicts. Not 
peace but division is the outward mark of human pro- 
gress. It takes only a little too much assertion of 
spiritual authority to provoke either violent reaction on 
the one hand, or prudent and ambitious co-operation on 
the other. Eeligion itself is ever on its trial among 
men with respect to its sincerity and sobriety. If 
hypocrisy and scepticism invade the domain of faith, 
shall not contemptuous neglect or active rebellion rule 
in the ranks of unbelief ? Church and State are likely 
to be most deeply at variance when most they affect to 
be one; and the spiritual power is most distrusted and 



38 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

cheated by individuals, when most it appeals to the 
secular arm for the enforcement of its dictates. Pro- 
gress is through patience. It is for the wise to teach ; 
not to gain an easy victory over the illusions and abuses 
of unthinking people. The sufferings of the prophets 
are less to be pitied than the crime and misery of those 
who ignorantly reject or destroy their prophets. Men 
cannot but value the things whereto they have already 
attained. Has a thing no worth because we cannot take 
it with us on the march ? It is a costly thing to move 
onward. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 

IIMPEEFECT as the world's discipline may appear at 
any time, when we consider long periods we find that 
despite the downward and backward tendencies of nature 
there is an upward and onward movement of mankind. 
We mark the current of history from far away. Man 
was once the child of nature. He worshipped her 
powers and learned her ways. He found companionship 
and wealth in flocks and herds, hunted wild beasts, and 
fought strange tribes, — exhibiting only the simplest 
household habits. Again he appears in highly organized 
society, possessed of multifarious and refined arts, which 
it required much time to develop ; while his progress is 
celebrated in national memorials, attested in ancient in- 
stitutions, asserted in military and naval powers, com- 
mercial activity, and far-reaching supremacy of law. 

And still the movement is onward. History is not 
left to grow sluggish and dead in common achievements ; 
but takes a new impulse and inspiration, aspires to a 
higher law, apprehends a reign of divine benevolence and 
boundless hope, — an inheritance of glory and virtue to 
be enjoyed, though all material elements should be dis- 
solved. Nothing is more impressive than the lights and 
shadows that come upon the world's face from the unseen 
life of its inhabitants. 



40 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Man's advancement is not seen alone by looking into 
the dim background out of which he has emerged. It is 
shown in the warning and awakening contrast of retribu- 
tive effects, that marks opposing motives and differing 
degrees of human endeavor. It seems both a physical 
and moral necessity that humanity should be appealed 
to, not only from the examples of conspicuous progress, 
but also from its aboriginal and degraded types. Those 
who do not march with the column must be known as 
lingering in the rear ; and when in the natural distribu- 
tion of life it is found that the lot of some human beings 
is cast in languid air and spontaneous abundance, an in- 
vading force is called for to break up an animal repose 
not corrected by any recurring compulsions of earth and 
sky. Is it thought that some men " builded better than 
they knew," and others worse? Then at least their 
works are not looked upon with indifference by their 
successors. Men will fall below the standards of the past, 
if they do not learn tft judge and surpass them. The 
ripest civilization will sink into decadence if it cannot 
bring up reserves of native vigor and simplicity to aid in 
reorganizing the elements of old renown. As both em- 
pire and church trace their lineage from the same 
primeval manhood, so both must have men of a primitive 
sort to save their glory from becoming a fading flower. 
Esthetic and religious luxury, the repose of wealth 
and civil order, combine to produce an enervating moral 
climate ; and the too happy possessors are liable to 
forget what is due to a common brotherhood, unless 
aroused by the challenge and threats of lawless claim- 
ants. The schooling of life measures progress by ser- 
vice. To do kindness to the fallen and disinherited, to 
raise untutored peoples to civilization and baptism, — 



AGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 41 

tBis is the way of salvation not for the degraded alone. It 
is the highest proof of a divine calling which the most 
disciplined and privileged of mankind can give. 

Meanwhile, the progress of liberty keeps even pace 
with the reign of law. It is the rule of law that a call 
to high service is a mark of special confidence. The 
civil ruler is, in idea, the servant of God, with ample 
powers and large discretion for the purpose of guiding 
the efforts, and controlling the excesses, of persons too 
little trained in their duties, and naturally overbearing 
in the assertion of their own claims. The office of the 
ruler may be tentatively and tyrannically administered ; 
but it may not be dispensed with. Gradually the experi- 
ment of government works its way toward a common 
judgment and practical consent, which, written or un- 
written, has the force of law. Legislation learns to take 
hints of those for whom the laws are made. Executive 
administration becomes the practical trial of what has 
been deliberatively enacted. Law reigns over rulers 
and subjects. Personal rights, liberties, prerogatives, 
are practically defined, moderately asserted, and peace- 
fully accepted. All this goes on independently of theory 
or form, through a conflict of forces not in stable equi- 
librium, but under a necessity of composing themselves 
as they can in a career of general order. 

Nor can it be denied that it is under the banner of 
religion, in spite of all abuses of the name, that law and 
liberty move on together. There must be a tribunal of 
last appeal. We take guarantees and hostages of every 
power but the Power who gave us to ourselves that we 
might fulfil his intention in our being. Eeligion appeals 
to man as free, as possessed of conscience, reason, faith, 
the elements of a sacred and inviolable personality, which 



42 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

to profane were worse than death. Over and above the 
religious principle and sentiment in men of authority and 
power, there is the voluntary and permanent organiza- 
tion of popular religious conviction, — public teaching 
and practice, which contemplate the divine authority, 
and man's final accountability to God alone. It is im- 
possible to measure the moulding, restraining, and in- 
spiring influence of religion as a factor in the common 
experience of mankind. 

This ever-mounting conception of duty, — this ever- 
enlarging discipline of obligation, by which liberty is 
defined as well as promoted, throws a backward hght 
upon the new-born, untrained creature of appetite and 
impulse, which shows even infancy as not without 
the image of God. That ignorant outreaching of the 
child, which unconsciously opens a breach between itself 
and its governors, which by and by, perhaps, seems at 
odds with society, at odds with institutions, at odds with 
the overruling Power, is equally at odds with the child's 
own higher and better possibilities. Through that open- 
ing breach comes the hint of a principle of freedom in 
human nature, in which man's birthright is so involved, 
and his destiny so wrapped up, that all outward authority 
needs to stand in awe before the sovereign man that is to 
be ; while through the same breach of harmony comes to 
the insubordinate learner of life his calling to rule in a 
sphere of his own, — to compose the factions of his na- 
ture, to harmonize body, soul, and spirit, to reconcile the 
claims of self, society, God. 

Experience determines also the progress and play of 
ideas. The pupil of nature thinks himself almost her 
master by and by, so much has he learned by obedience 
to her laws. Just so man comes to look upon himself 



AGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 43 

as not by any means the creature of political institutions 
and social customs, but rather as the source whence cus- 
toms and institutions originate and the standard by which 
they are to be judged. Eebellions and revolutions come 
to be regarded as more lawful than the power they bring 
into judgment. History has its turn of being written and 
read from the point of view of undistinguished people. 
The oracles of man's spiritual nature give responses from 
the Hfe that now is as to the life that may be hereafter. 
Departed souls are conceived as treasuring up and car- 
rying on the moral achievements of incarnate human- 
ity. The dead are not of necessity held to inhabit an 
under-world, but rise in thought to the brightness of a 
spiritual heaven. Unable to limit that career of invisible 
manhood, whose tendencies and issues are typified in our 
earthly training, the prophets of the future avail them- 
selves of the imagery and colorings of transitory exist- 
ence to depict their anticipations of eternal life. In view 
of such anticipations, the perfection of our whole provi- 
sional discipline, like that of our individual infancy, 
seems to be, not in any prescriptive and faultless out- 
ward action, but in the development of inward principles 
and motives, such as shall by and by dispose and enable 
their possessor to originate just conduct independently of 
outward constraints. Accordingly, the final proof of crea- 
tive goodness depends upon the mature results of our dis- 
ciplinary experience, and cannot reasonably be looked for 
in the happiness immediately accruing from our present 
conditions. And, as the faith demanded of us in the con- 
ditions of our nonage goes on towards its justification in 
the evidence of a consummation to come, so the anxiety 
incident to partial views undergoes a necessary transfor- 
mation into the confidence of maturer knowledge. 



44 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

We may now recur to the opening of our discussion', 
and briefly go over the general movement of thought 
thus far. Man's point of departure in life was set forth 
as ^* from the least degree of self-control with the greatest 
degree of outward constraint." The instinct of liberty 
does not fail to appear in the earliest life. It appears, 
however, m the law of spontaneous and unreflective 
self-assertion. This early motive and manifestation of 
liberty demands checks and regulations, and demands 
them more peremptorily the more unguarded and dan- 
gerous the natural self-assertion appears. But checks 
and regulations from without, necessary and useful as 
they may be, are not growth, and cannot secure a perfect 
development. It is the inward law that determines the 
fulfilment of being. 

Again, it was said that the normal movement of life is 
" toward the greatest degree of self-control with the least 
degree of outward constraint." The instinct of liberty is 
gradually transformed, and passes into the rational law of 
liberty. The type of freedom changes from that of spon- 
taneous self-assertion toward outward objects to that of 
conscientious obedience to the inward revelation of truth. 
The inward revelation is at last sovereign. When the 
reign of God announces itself with assurance in man's 
spirit, he is commissioned to judge what he owes to tu- 
tors and governors. It is the mark of a spirit inspired 
of God to master the world in refusing to be mastered 
by it, though the world should summon all machineries 
of coercion to its aid. There is a sphere of personal 
liberty in which a man is alone with God, and in this 
liberty is the consecration of all great service to man- 
kind. To be saved from the evils of excessive self-asser- 
tion, man must submit to provisional restraints ; and in 



AGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 45 j 

winning his way to ultimate freedom he must not de- j 
cline the struggles and sacrifices that are the price of i 
redemption from usurping ordinances. \ 
Under the laws of physical life, however, our emanci- I 
pation cannot be fully realized. Were the full develop- j 
ment of spiritual being possible under earthly conditions, ' 
which is not conceivable, such a development is practi- 
cally denied to mankind in the fact of death. What is 
of the earth returns to the earth. What is spirit must; 
reach its higher destiny under the trial of new disclos- \ 
ures and new responsibilities, or else the whole life of j 
man is " a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then j 
vanisheth away." The hard service of mortal existence, \ 
the bondage through fear of death, the bondage of cor- J 
ruption, — all this is but the antithesis and prelude of ; 
perfection, if we are sons of God. Tutelage is ministe- 
rial and transitory. The reign of the Father is eternal. : 



CHAPTEE V. 

AGES OF DIVINE TEACHING. 

TF human beings, as they enter the world, are actually 
■*■ entered into a discipline of life, if the reality of tute- 
lage is universal, and essentially one under all varieties 
of form, then this tutelage belongs to the constitution of 
nature. In other words, it is in the intention and work- 
ing of the Author of nature. Hence for men to recog- 
nize a genuine leader is in effect to salute the creative 
Leadership. It is the grand distinction of the Scriptures 
that they give us an interpretation of the world's history 
through a long succession of men who regarded them- 
selves and regarded mankind as under the guidance and 
discipline of one God. 

No doubt, every note in the scale of human possibili- 
ties finds some sort of utterance among all men ; but the 
historic harmony involves distinction of parts. Any 
group of human beings may have leaders, individuals 
brought to the front by force of nature, by force of cir- 
cumstances, — chieftains in the struggle of life, heredi- 
tary heroes, imperial masters; and even a polytheistic 
faith will recognize a nameless numen in the chief of the 
state. But the great demand is for one divine leading, 
for a religious primacy, for the man who shaU best 
mediate to the world a guidance coming down from the 



AGES OF DIVINE TEACHING. 47 

Father of lights. The Scriptures are alive with the be- 
lief that not only the being, but also the well-being, of 
mankind, depends finally upon God. Men are not suffi- 
cient for themselves. Hence leaders are conceived as 
servants of God for the welfare, not of a peculiar people 
only, but of all mankind; while nations, like men, are 
given precedence or rebuke according to the service they 
are renderiQg in the direction of interests that are uni- 
versal. The movement of thought in the sacred writers 
is according to a method of revelation which contem- 
plates the coming of the divine Man, the perfect Leader, 
and so the Saviour of mankind. 

The men chosen to prepare the way for this ultimate 
leadership were selected spiritually by a law of faith in 
one God, the knowledge of whom was to fill the earth. 
The whole action, through every scene, belongs to a 
theocratic drama shadowing forth the eternal reign. 
Noah's family is not represented as having escaped the 
deluge by a natural struggle ; it was saved by divine 
interposition on moral grounds. Abraham's calling of 
faith had reference to no immediate worldly pre-emi- 
nence ; it was in the assurance that he would not only 
command his children and his household after him, but 
that in him and his seed all the families of the earth 
should be blessed. Moses was the lawgiver of Israel, 
not by the natural claim of Egyptian learning, but as 
a man taught of God. It required much more than an 
able military leader to settle the twelve tribes in the 
land of promise. It was no natural gift of divination 
that made a prophet, but the word of Jehovah becoming 
the burden of a human spirit. There was a priestly 
family; but no law of physical descent could make a 
priest, unless he were called of God, as was Aaron. 



48 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

And royalty, — was it natural inheritance, anointing 
oil, state, power ? No. It was truth, justice, piety. 
Nothing was real, nothing answered to its name, with- 
out the divine inspiration, the seal of the supreme Sov- 
ereign. No prophecy was of private interpretation. The 
anointed man was consecrated to service on behalf of 
his kind. Prophet, priest, or king was forbidden to 
transgress the proper limits of his calhng. "I am not 
the Christ" was the tacit if not express confession of 
all forerunners of the Christ. 

But when the Christ is come, there is in him an inde- 
pendence of traditions, a mysterious infinitude of spirit, 
importing the fulfilment of Nature's original design. He 
is conceived as the mystery of communion with the 
Father, that he may be the revelation of love to the 
children; the Son of God, that he may be the perfect 
Son of Man. He came into the course of nature from 
above, that he might show the true meaning of what 
was from beneath. He was King by the truth and grace 
of God, or he could not have taken the form and minis- 
tries of a servant with absolute fidelity to "man. He was 
the impersonation of the Father's reign, or he could not 
have been the example and inspiration of loyalty to his 
brethren, who had failed to recognize their birthright 
under the solicitations of appetite and worldly desire. 
On the other hand, if Christ had not done full justice 
to what was true in the schooling of the world, he could 
not have carried out that rudimentary teaching to the 
fulness of its eternal meaning. If he had not honored 
with meek heart and due obedience those sitting in 
Moses' seat, he could not have reproved their works in 
the name of divine justice. If he had not rendered to 
Caesar the things that were Caesar's, he could not have 



AGES OF DIVINE TEACHING. 49 

rendered to God the things that are God's. It was for 
him to divide the light from the darkness, to reveal the 
reign of God and the law of perfection in the weakness 
of the body and under all temptations of the world. He 
was to rebuke the world's routine methods of self-aggran- 
dizement and success in the wilderness. He was to van- 
quish the world's tyranny, that had the power of death, 
upon the cross. He was to rise to the life immortal, and 
be recognized as the successful Initiator of the era of re- 
demption. He was to reign in the glory of the Father, 
till he should witness the consummation of the divine 
purpose, — the deliverance not of man only, but of the 
whole creation, from its primitive bondage into the glo- 
rious liberty of the children of God. 

Such is the Biblical conception. In the Christ incar- 
nate the Scriptures represent to us absolute spiritual 
superiority to outward constraints ; though the Son ap- 
pears in the house of bondage, is called out of Egypt in 
a deeper than the literal sense, through a Eed Sea more 
terrible than that in which Israel of old was baptized 
unto Moses. In the conception of Christ risen from the 
dead the Scriptures give us the idea of man's sonship 
and majority, in communion with the Father without 
the obstructions incident to the natural life. 

Who but the Christ should sum up for us the Scrip- 
tural interpretation of the world ? What has he told us 
in word or action of the world-tutelage ? Did he caU it 
a dead failure ? In demonstrating its errors did he deny 
its usefulness ? In denouncing its sins did he refuse any 
longer to employ it in working out righteousness ? In suf- 
fering its oppressions was there no joy of it set before 
him in his hopes ? Surely, he did not come to abolish 
the imperfect government by which the natural man 

4 



50 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

is kept in some kind of order and training for better 
things. Harsh Eoman masters had done much in bring- 
ing mankind to the fulness of the time when the Christ 
should come ; and would do still more in extending the 
protection of imperial law over the progress of his gos- 
pel among the nations. Moses was faithful in all his 
house as a servant. The mastership of Moses was not 
to be repudiated, but fulfilled in its full intention. More 
wonderful still, the will of the Father, that forbade an 
unconditional subjection to hierarchical or imperial de- 
mands, was not supernaturally to hinder the governing 
powers from having their way in the infliction of suffer- 
ing to be sacrificially endured. In this iufliction the 
proper function of earthly government was recognized, 
its perversion by the powers of evil was judged, and the 
Son of Man was glorified. Nor in the resurrection is 
he represented as counting his sacrifice too great. His 
word to two sad disciples is : — "0 foolish men, and 
slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have 
spoken. Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these 
things, and to enter into his glory ? " Then, from Moses, 
and from all the prophets, and in all the Scriptures, he 
interpreted the things concerning himself. 

To whom, according to the New Testament, is the 
revelation of the Christ to appeal ? Who are personally 
interested in its effects ? Who are to share in its influ- 
ence and success ? The men of all ages. Abraham, who 
rejoiced to see the day of the Lord ; Moses and Elijah, 
whose presence with him in the holy Mount shows them 
as awaiting the universal transfiguration ; the men of faith, 
from Abel down, mentioned in the eleventh chapter of 
Hebrews, who were not to reach their perfection but in 
fellowship with their brethren of the Christian era. In 



AGES OF DIVINE TEACHING. 51 

the third chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter the 
Christ is represented, having first suffered for sins, as 
hastening in spirit with his proclamation to the once 
disobedient antediluvians. The remotest residents of 
hades are conceived as not beyond his reach. For, if 
the men of faith need to know their Leader in order to 
reach perfection, certainly, according to the New Tes- 
tament, the men of unbelief must come to the truth, 
which is to put their conduct and destiny also in the 
proper light. But in the fourth chapter of the same 
Epistle, sixth verse, a broader statement is made. We 
are told that the gospel was preached " also to the dead," 
for this purpose, that they might not only " be judged 
according to men in the flesh " (as they had been), " but 
live according to God in the spirit." In fine, the scope 
and unity of God's revelation, according to the wisdom 
given to St. Paul, may be read in the third chapter of 
Ephesians : " Unto me, who am less than the least 
of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the 
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and to make 
all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery 
which from all ages hath been hid in God, who created 
all things ; to the intent that now unto the principalities 
and the powers in the heavenly places might be made 
known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, 
according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 

We may add, then, that, whether we inquire of ligature 
or Scripture, we gain a reasonable assurance on three 
points : First, bodily life is made to serve in the propa- 
gation and training of spiritual men. Secondly, while dis- 
union and servitude mark the world's history, the divine 
revelation indicates the creative purpose as one of recon- 



52 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ciliation and freedom; namely, "to gather together in 
one all things in Christ." Thirdly, if this purpose, rul- 
ing in spite of obstructions in our earthly history, is to 
reach perfect fulfilment, it must be in history transcend- 
ing our present experience ; that is, in history conceived 
as the eternal reign of the Father in the life of the 
resurrection. 

The process of spiritual training permits something to 
appear which is to disappear. In the world's experience 
the moral trial is not a thing of spiritual instinct and 
speculation alone, but a reality of practical moment, the 
effort of overcoming the worse with the better. The 
wheat and the tares grow together. The church of the 
Eedeemer carries along with her, through all phases of 
her earthly history, the antichrist from which she is to 
be redeemed. The visible Christianity of the modern 
age, like the old Jerusalem and the old Eome, exhibits 
not only the vices to which its virtues are opposed, but 
faults which spring from virtues that have not reached 
their fulness. The reign of God moulds and moves to 
its own purpose that governance which the nature and 
needs of imperfect men will not dispense with. Divine 
efficiency is working through human deficiency. With- 
out the reactions of the world to come, the Christian 
calling could not have its distinctive character in the 
world that now is. Without the trials of the world that 
now is, the earthly generations of men could not effec- 
tively conceive or actually win the triumphs and joys of 
the world to come. The consummation of man as par- 
taker of the divine nature revealed in the Christ does 
not disown connection with the physical laboratory of 
life. The bruising of the serpent's head, and the dehv- 
erance of the spiritual man, not without suffering, dates 



AGES OF DIVINE TEACHING. 53 

from that far receding period of the garden and the 
living creatures, — when above the beasts, yet like them 
of the earth, the first human pair is conceived as erring 
in a primitive choice between the seductions of animal 
appetite, or intellectual ambition, and the divine voice 
of benevolent restraint and authority. The principles 
and tendencies that have asserted themselves in historic 
human nature hitherto are set forth in Scripture as be- 
longing to original man. 



PAET SECOND. 

THE FALL. 



" The first man is of the earth, earthy." 

1 Con. XV. 47. 

" Nemo ergo quserat efficientem causam malse voluntatis ; quia 

nee ilia effectio est, sed defectio. Deficere namque ab eo quod 

summe est ad id quod minus est, hoc est incipere habere volun- 

tatem malam." 

St. Augustine : De Civitate Dei, lib. xii. c. 7. 

" Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree 
Not in itseK was cause of so great exile, 
But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds." 

Longfellow's Dante : Paradise, xxvi. 115-117. 

" What fear I then ? rather, what know to fear 
Under this ignorance of good or evil, 
Of God or death, of law or penalty 1 " 

Milton : Paradise Lost, ix. 773-775. 

" Some falls are means the happier to arise." 

Shakspeare : Cymbeline, Act iv. Scene 2. 



PART SECOND. 

THE FALL. 



CHAPTEK I. 

ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 

TT is seen that man, though started in life as the fee- 
•^ blest factor in his own destiny, exists in such organic 
relation with universal nature as not only to be subject 
to a necessary tutelage, but also to co-operate voluntarily 
with the spiritual purpose revealing itself from age to 
age in the progress of human society. 

If, therefore, the progress of every human being opens 
a growing contrast between the inappreciably small be- 
ginning of life and the immeasurably great objects and 
efforts to which life is addressed, what are we to think 
of the ever-growing contrast between the opening trial 
of original human nature and the teachings of ex- 
perience in the vast career of mankind as a whole ? 
Would the earliest human mistake or misdoing be nat- 
urally looked upon as a peculiar mystery and scandal ? 
Or, would it not rather be regarded as something quite 
within the range of personal liabilities ; something to be 
reasonably expected from the spontaneous development 
of inward principles, that require the discipline of expe- 
rience for their proper ordering and lawful restraint ? 

At any rate, we cannot study the Scripture conception 
of man's primitive moral error without giving some 



58 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

heed to the obvious teacMag of nature as to its source 
and character. 

The drama of Eden does not come down to us as the 
thought of primeval man. It is part of the literature of 
a people, peculiar by reason of their advanced theologi- 
cal conceptions, whose calling was in a world no longer 
young. The experience of ages had taught the mortahty 
of man's physical nature. To die was to be judged "ac- 
cording to men in the flesh ; " while the administration 
of this judgment was recognized as having a persistent 
reference to a moral discipline, by which mankind might 
learn to live " according to God in the spirit." But since 
no man of the by-gone generations had survived, as an 
example of what it is to fulfil the divine law of life, of 
course the common transgression of law, by which death 
was found to invade the human body, was carried back 
to the beginning of human experience. From the first, 
the race of man was one to be instructed, to be held 
responsible, and to be judged. Such was the organic 
law of life. The discipline which all succeeding genera- 
tions have inherited is presumably the discipline into 
which the original family of mankind must have been 
initiated. 

This moral initiation is set forth in Scripture accord- 
ing to the very elements and image of ISTature. But it 
has also been enveloped in a transcendental halo by 
theological speculation and dogmatic systems, in such 
a way as very much to obscure its verifiable features. 

We are now concerned with what is in the order of 

nature, — and so, verifiable. We take the words of St. 

Paul, " howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but 

that which is natural ; then that which is spiritual," ^ 

1 1 Cor. XV. 46. 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 59 

for a verifiable statement as to the common order of 
human development. Life in its beginning is preoccu- 
pied with material objects and physical necessities, while 
spiritual revelations are reserved for a later day. 

That a creature of God is entered into such an order 
of development is shown by what he begins to do, not 
by how he began to be. Science may penetrate the 
method of creation, if it can. It may try to deter- 
mine whether the different species of living things were 
brought into reproductive being at an instant word, 
or the creative fiat be more reasonably conceived as the 
working out of various organic forms and functions 
through secret processes and inscrutable generations of 
life. The postulate of Scripture with regard to man is, 
that such and so much as he originally appeared in the 
order of nature, such and so much he was created and 
made by the Author of nature. Here, at this stage of 
intelhgence, we are told in effect, is the beginning of the 
human movement in the history of things. Here is rep- 
resented a creature of physical organization, to be devel- 
oped more and more as a rational and moral power ; a 
creature instinct with natural motives that imply a career 
of spontaneous activity, yet limited in faculty, checked 
in thought, sensibihty, and effort ; a being conscious of 
a free initiative, yet held to a constant reckoning with 
outward objects, that react upon him according to no 
choice of his. 

In nature also are the limits of any instruction to be 
communicated. Teaching must be according to the 
learner's powers and conceptions. Creative tuition may, 
nay, must have reference to conditions and laws, of 
which man is not only ignorant at first, but of which 
he cannot be taught by mere intellectual suggestion. 



60 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Hence the mark of divine teaching is its condescension 
and accommodation to finite capacity. The material 
envelopment is made to mitigate the uncreated light, 
and adjust it to human vision. The same material nature 
is man's defence against malignant spirits, if such be 
supposed to act against him. In whatever guise they may 
be fancied to appear, man cannot be an intentional ac- 
complice in their spiritual aim. He is not taken into 
the secret of it. The human trial is in the universe, to 
be sure ; but it is meted out in the measure of human 
nature, in order that the universe may be gradually and 
safely apprehended in experience and thought. The 
plain story of human conduct at any particular moment 
is not verified, but is rather made unverifiable, by being 
complicated with what is foreign to itself. It is postu- 
late enough that" man, as part of creation, lives and 
moves, and has his being in the Creator. 

That the moral trial of humanity was social in the 
beginning cannot be held as otherwise than favorable to 
its success. "What is essential to the development of 
our race is represented in Scripture as conducive also 
to personal welfare. So far as man and woman are 
distinguished from each other, this is equivalent to the 
lar^r range of their united powers, and to more ample 
security against individual weakness. But since man 
and woman are two in one, the unit of the race, their 
conduct is set forth as pertaining to one nature, — a 
nature conceived as originally without taint of moral 
depravation, without bias of foregoing example. Man's 
career is, in Genesis, the central reahty of a physical crea- 
tion which is of God, and very good. Nature was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, perfect in principle, 
wise in organic law, — yet having reference not only to 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 61 

an immediate personal discipline, but to a vast spiritual 
design requiring unknown ages for its fulfilment. 

The danger of life is the danger of transgressing the 
law of life. So far as we have evidence that man was, or 
is naturally liable to transgress the law of his being, the 
e\T.dence connects this liability with two phases of our 
individual and collective history : namely, first, the pecu- 
liar proneness of unschooled nature to practical errors of 
ignorance ; and, secondly, the discipline of physical and 
moral law for the better regulation of conduct. Each of 
these phases of our history can be discussed with the cer- 
titude that goes with conscious experience. 

From the nettle danger to pluck the flower safety is 
the natural allotment of all living creatures upon earth. 
Man's dangers are to be estimated by the vast range of 
interests that are at stake upon his conduct. The expe- 
rienced chemist does not handle the elements and appara- 
tus of his own laboratory without a care which signifies 
danger. How, then, shall the novice of a race make his 
way in the laboratory of creation and the chemistry of 
life without risk, wisely as all things are arranged for 
his guidance and warning? However exalted in faculty 
the original man may be conceived to have been, he was 
constituted to be schooled, at least physically and intel- 
lectually, by his own mistakes ; not to move on tenta- 
tively in experiments of life, and come to no practical 
error. Indeed, man comes upon occasions of stumbling 
and falling so various and recurring that he cannot afford 
to be preoccupied with shunning mishaps, for fear that 
such a preoccupation might be the greatest mishap of 
all. He will gaze at the stars in spite of the danger of 
stumbling at the stone in his path. He is even diverted 
and stimulated by the risks to which his spontaneous 



62 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

movements expose him, and wins familiarity with out- 
ward things through a somewhat heroic disregard of 
hurts and pains. 

The original man has it before him to learn and prac- 
tise the arts of life. He is to make trial of the difference 
between thought and bodily organs, as well as of the 
difference between bodily organs and the more inert ma- 
terial through which the mind's intention must be car- 
ried out. The muscular movement does not obey with 
inevitable precision the inward mandate. The organ is 
untrained, and the instrument is rude. The stroke slips 
away from the mark, and the manufacture falls below 
the idea. What was not too well conceived is but too 
ill done. Only by degrees can mechanical execution 
rise above its early failures towards those better pat- 
terns which the mind is gradually working out. To hold 
the thing done as at once equal to the idea, — this were 
the most disastrous fall, the fall of the idea itself to the 
level of the manufactured article, the fall from the birth- 
right of progress, wherein all future achievements are 
stored. Instead of this, the thing done becomes an ob- 
ject to be judged, a proof of how the effort fell below the 
design, a pungent suggestion of failure on the one hand 
and of possible improvement on the other. Thus the 
artistic judgment and sensibility, the artistic conscience, 
becomes active through a sense of practical deficiency, 
and moves on to better efforts and worthier results. If 
it were needful to account for primitive failure in manual 
exertions, how could the truth be better summed up, on 
reflection, than by saying that the work, not having been 
done according to the perfect conception of what was 
required, could be recognized, not as free from forbidden 
elements and unqualifiedly good, but only as containing 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 63 

elements of good and evil. The highest law, of course, 
demands good only, and is against the knowledge of 
good mixed with evil. Must we not suppose that in the 
first man especially there was a practical deficiency, due 
to inexperience and the consistency of his clay, the rec- 
ognition of which would prick him on towards what 
might be due to the nobility of his spirit ? 

But if in the simplest beginnings of art there is a 
natural law of practical failure ; if the law of the mind 
is intellectual and aesthetic, while the law in the mem- 
bers is physical and cosmic, so that at first it seems 
good luck rather than good effort when the mark is hit, — 
how is it in the sphere of science ? Did flesh and blood 
ever so inherit the inscrutable laws of physical life as to 
be under no liability of transgressing their bounds ? On 
the contrary, is not this liability the portion peculiarly 
of initial existence ? That there are things contrary to 
the law of life may soon appear; but what, and how 
many, are the forbidden things, or the forbidden rela- 
tions of things, not even the largest experience can fully 
tell. Only we know that the things forbidden by or- 
ganic law or by artistic judgment are by and by for- 
bidden by the moral sense as well. The physical 
and industrial habits are gradually taken up into the 
moral training, in order that the body itself, and all tem- 
porary forms of activity, may be brought for their day 
under spiritual control. Here, too, in the sphere of 
rational faith and righteousness, the man of primitive 
nature left us no perfect example. 

But who is to cast the first stone at the first man ? 
Certainly not we, who share his moral infirmity after 
ages of instruction and experience. Is man a creature 
to originate perfect moral conduct from partial and pro- 



64 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

hibitory hints of moral obligation ? ISTo. He is consti- 
tuted to originate conduct freely, that in the judgment 
of that conduct, as the particulars of it complete them- 
selves, he may learn to distinguish the good from the 
not good. As in art, so in morals, judgment and sensi- 
bility are combined iu the consciousness of what is done 
in a way to rebuke the mixture of good and evil in mo- 
tive or action, that the spirit, inspired with faith and 
hope, may be spurred on toward what is good only. 

Primitive moral trial — what is it ? Is it not a self- 
government, constitutional but untutored, in which the 
personal power is necessarily moved to action, but under 
limits of knowledge and liabilities of inexperience such 
that, if the danger of practical error be great, the danger 
of contractuig moral guilt is correspondingly mitigated ? 
Witness the poiuted teaching of the New Testament, that 
the gravest spiritual perils are associated with the final 
word, not with the first lessons, of revelation. 

The primitive liability to failure is connected indeed 
with animal appetites, together with a certain awkward- 
ness of muscular effort and resistance of matter ; but it 
reaches also to the complex and comprehensive moral 
calling that gradually opens to the mind. Duty dis- 
closes itself in the sphere of art, in the sphere of physical 
law ; but it goes beyond these spheres, and contemplates 
the effort of all powers toward their rational ends. All 
personal relations, all service and loyalty, are leaduig on 
to the apprehension of infinite righteousness; while at 
the same time the uninformed and inexperienced soul is 
open to only partial hints, shut up within the narrowest 
bounds of knowledge, and occupied about details of im- 
mediate and pressing requirement, that make up the 
rudimentary lessons for a far-off perfection of being. Is 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 65 

there a discrepancy between our ideal and our actual, 
which all the discipline of life cannot cause to disap- 
pear ? — which the discipliue of life may for a time 
make more and more apparent ? And is there no neces- 
sary difference between creative thought in universal 
nature and the rude essays of unschooled faculties ? Is 
man held to have been highly endowed at first, a spiritual 
nature far above the common range, in the invisible like- 
ness of ideal Divinity ? How, then, should not his gifts 
be quite out of proportion to his earthly calling, and he, 
the apprentice in practical methods, be perpetually hum- 
bled and irked by lowly and tedious trials on the very 
threshold of existence ? Or, suppose the spiritual gifts 
and calling to be reserved for a later period of personal 
development, and the habit of being to take shape for a 
time in quiet harmony with earthward relations and 
efforts, how should not these natural preoccupations ab- 
sorb energy and limit development, so that by and by 
the spiritual calling would appeal to the awakened con- 
sciousness with incitements and reproofs in view of sen- 
sual and sluggish days ? Grant the divinest tempering 
and harmony of powers, organs, and exercises ; there is at 
least the liability to fatigue, the natural limit of every 
exertion, and of every indulgence. There is in idea the 
line of perfection, the boundary at every point between 
not too little and not too much, in which all opposing 
claims are reconciled. But can we suppose that the true 
orbit of a combined physical and spiritual movement, 
which has never been intellectually demonstrated, is, in 
the very first trial, to be spontaneously described ? Only 
the fulness of the creative Godhead in man is equal to 
such a result, — not man, as a stranger in the earth, set 
to labor, to listen, to learn, and to obey. A healthy de- 

5 



66 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

sire to do the riglit thing degenerating into an anxious 
scrupulosity has already missed the mark; and so has 
the quiet assurance of having done as well as it was. pos- 
sible to do. No sooner does the inward purpose formu- 
late itself in outward conduct, than there appears an 
action to be reviewed and judged. Was it perfect ? If 
so, the actor has hit the mark of his calling at one point 
only. Was it well meant, but worse done ? Then there 
takes place at once a corresponding distinction and judg- 
ment with regard to it. The act is not simply good, but 
good and evil. Thus, a phase of completed moral action 
becomes the practical prelude to the revelation of a 
higher law of conduct, — a law which finds fault with 
what went before, and beckons onward to nobler exer- 
tion. The higher law enters by reason of what is seen 
to have involved, however unintentionally, an element of 
transgression ; and the expression for moral advancement 
is that of the Psalmist: ''I have seen an end of all 
perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad." 

Now, if it be urged that the unavoidable distinction 
between inward suggestion and outward performance is 
accounted for and justified by the organic law of our 
existence, and that a man is to be blamed only so far as 
he has acted from a faulty intention, there is no occasion 
to object. What appears is that our organic law does 
involve a necessary missing of the ideal mark, a neces- 
sary falling below the ideal standard, especially in the 
momentary efforts of initial experiment. In other words, 
man was originally set to win his way and to win 
his prize by voluntary discipline and self-sacrificing 
obedience. 

But there are tendencies in human nature that make 
against discipline and obedience. It follows that a faulty 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 67 

intention, or a disloyal passion, or a disobedient purpose, 
is an evil into which an untried virtue might fall for a 
time, through inappreciable processes of temptation. Here 
we come to that freedom of moral agency in which man 
learns to know himself as a prince, and possibly to think 
of himself as like his Maker. He is under a necessity 
of legislating for himself in detail, and he judges him- 
self in detail; but he can only spell out in part, and 
never fully know, the divine law ; which is over him 
as well as in him, and by which he is, however myster- 
iously, brought to judgment. If the new man, being 
both prince and apprentice, has adjudged various doings 
of his own to be what he would not have the same kind 
of doings to be in future, would it be the way of a gen- 
erous and upright spirit to say, " There is no fault of 
mine here ; I disavow all responsibility for what is done 
amiss ; it is all due to the law of my creation" ? On the 
contrary, shall not the reverent and conscientious sus- 
ceptibility be prompt to suspect some personal delin- 
quency, and even to accept a responsibility not literally 
forced upon it, — assured that the supreme Judge can do 
no wrong ? Conviction of error is one element in the 
conviction of sin, and for a time the chief, possibly the 
sole, element; but the other element, the feeling of 
blame-worthiness, is not far off. It is ever ready to 
come in with the after judgment of any regrettable 
act, whose character was not distinctly known or duly 
weighed beforehand. 

This would hold true in a special sense of a first diso- 
bedience. Disobedience, while man is little aware of 
the significance of law, may be determined upon, not as 
wrong, but as probably advantageous, or at any rate as 
not likely to be very injurious. How can the disobe- 



68 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

dience be realized as wrong before it has fulfilled itself 
so as to prove its own character, and thus enable the 
conscience quickened by experience to pass judgment 
upon it ; or, what is the same thing, to feel the force of 
a higher judgment saying, " That was wrong " ? At 
this later stage, the least foregoiog suspicion or doubt is 
transfigured into a clear warning, that condemns the error 
and precipitation of the disobedient act. If the man re- 
fuse to own his responsibility ; if he set himself to pre- 
varicate, to escape the mortification ensuing upon his 
conduct , — what is this but to aggravate the fault and 
difficulty into which he has fallen, to prepare the way 
for a more painful recoil from what is done, and for a 
severer discipline in what is still to do ? As there is 
a demonstration of error inseparable from a slow and 
difficult progress in truth, so there is a development of 
practical wrong in acts that grow imperceptibly to their 
fulfilment, through infinitesimal increments of motive 
and energy ; and the wrong is appreciated only when 
the act is fulfilled. It is when something is produced 
out of harmony with the law of the mind, that one be- 
comes aware that in the members there is a bondage of 
sin, a rule not to hve by, but to be dehvered from. So 
it comes to pass that, on the side of provisional expe- 
riments and unsatisfactory results, man finds himself 
lapsing, failing, and his works perishing; but on the 
other side, the side of a noble purpose and a beneficent 
teaching, he finds himself going on and up, enlarging 
his range, disciplining his powers, and producing works, 
not immortal indeed, but not so soon or so willingly 
allowed to perish. 

It is not in the primitive action alone that the ques- 
tion is put, What motive shall be honored, and what mas- 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 69 

ter shall be served ? That action is the opening of a trial, 
that continues open. More and more pressingly with 
every new experience does the great alternative recur: 
law and life, or disobedience and death. It is a princely 
probation. Law may seem severe for the moment ; yet 
law is vital and progressive, an austere but beautiful 
queen. Lawlessness may seem real and vital in a way, 
and pleasantly indulgent to the senses ; but lawlessness is 
a treacherous mistress with forbidden fruit, rejecting the 
higher only to fall under the lower requirement — the 
law of death. Life discloses no full justification in 
what a man has done, no matter how well. Nothing 
that man can finish, or formulate in act, is man's whole 
duty or perfect obedience. He must go on and up. This 
is his law, and his blessedness. He is not to talk of being 
tantalized with an unapproachable perfection. He is to 
move towards the excellence he apprehends ; or else fall 
into the beggarly listlessness that seeks no higher good 
— and lives no more. 

Contemplate the accumulation and continuity of fail- 
ure through which the best discipline of life has realized 
its measures of good ; and so appreciate the life itself — 
the spirit begotten and nourished from above for so ar- 
duous a progress. If man is not constituted to originate 
conduct of ideal perfection at first, how significant the 
fact that he never fails to develop the polarities of 
thought and sensibility known as conscience; and that, 
when conscience affirms something of evil even in what 
was meant only for good, not even the good mixed with 
evil can save the whole from that active resentment which 
demands a new trial and a better result. Thus man's nat- 
ural liability to fall into evil becomes the ground of a high 
calling : " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with 



70 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

good." And while we may well believe, with St. Paul, that 
sin is not imputed as intentional transgression while as 
yet no positive law has been announced, still we must rec- 
ognize the fact that unintentional transgression needs to 
be corrected ; and so, it may well be by reason of such 
transgression that the divine law enters, brmging with it 
the knowledge of sin. 

The distinction of what is done according to opposite 
poles of thought, — good and evil, right and wrong, — 
originating, as we have seen, from the centre of personal 
judgment through the teachings of experience, does not 
confine itself to its own sphere, but goes out into a dual- 
ism that conceives the universe, whether of space or 
time, as exhibiting a like polarization of energy. Man 
reconstructs all things according to this original anti- 
thesis. He makes new heavens and a new earth with 
elements of good and evil. Ionian powers before the 
world was are at odds, — Ormuzd and Ahriman, Odin 
and Loki, powers of good and powers of evil. The 
same antithesis rules in the conception of the limitless 
future. The carnal mind and the spiritual mind are 
represented respectively in actions and powers that sig- 
nify a truceless warfare. The moral discord seizes upon 
all natural contrasts and incompatibilities, as its symbols. 
It becomes the interpreter of the world, transfiguring 
things and names, that it may assign them to service in 
the spiritual realm. Day and night, summer and winter, 
earth and air, fire and water, health and sickness, growth 
and decay, life and death, become expressions for inward 
struggle and vicissitude. Of course, the inward struggle 
comes to conscious vigor according to the development 
of races and individuals ; but it takes all literature to 
record it, and all life to utter its voice. The Brahmin 



ORIGINAL MAN AND PRIMITIVE TRIAL. 71 

looking upon limited experience as ambiguous and illu- 
sive, loftging to be absorbed through knowledge in the 
universe of being ; the Buddhist trying by meditative 
discipline to shorten a tedious metempsychosis and reach 
that mysterious Nirvana, good at least as the negation of 
evil ; the Christian finding no adequate repose here, but 
sighing for a sabbath-rest that remaineth for the people 
of God ; the v^hole creation groaning and travailing in 
pain, waiting for redemption or reconciliation, that shall 
rule out the irrational elements of finite destiny, — these 
are some of the notes in a universal chorus of testimony 
to man's deficiency and failure in realizing the good, to 
the discord and mortal agony of his experience in the 
knowledge of good and evil. 

But if man is impelled to look beyond himself for 
deliverance from evil, he is obliged to find the source of 
his defection from good in his own nature. The mo- 
menta of personal conduct are in the person. It may 
seem little to know ; but when we inquire into the 
natural history of man's defection, we justly conceive 
it to be a falling from the harmony of an original con- 
stitution attributable to the Creator alone, of whose work 
no evil can be predicated, into an immaturity and uncer- 
tainty of action, at necessary odds both with creative 
wisdom and with the growing ideas of creaturely perfec- 
tion. The fall appears as a childish proneness, for a time, 
to trial of things not known to be good, or even presumed 
to be evil; whose rashness or precipitancy may be ac- 
counted for, if not excused, by the natural limits of ap- 
prehension, the predominance of physical nature pending 
the gradual development of spiritual powers, the conceiv- 
able lack of dutiful attention to the better and worse 
aspects of proposed conduct through ignorance or pre- 



72 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

occupation, and finally, by the tendency, in view of things 
already done, to a sluggish or self-willed complicity with 
what needs to be corrected. Thus, the smallest deviation 
from the perfect law of being is just so far a partaking 
of forbidden elements, a turning of experience from the 
knowledge of good simply, to the knowledge of good and 
evil, an opening of life to inroads of decay and death. 
It is with reference to this gradual process of defection, 
too unconscious and obscure to be seized upon and de- 
fined, till it is summed up in some deed, that St. Augus- 
tine conceives our first parents to have moved in secret 
disloyalty to their act of outward disobedience.^ 

1 In occulto autem mali esse coeperunt, ut in apertam inobedientiam 
laberentur. — Le Civitate BeL lib. xiv. c. 13. 



CHAPTER 11. 

GENESIS COSMICAL AND IONIAN. 

TT is a mark of Scripture that not only its general repre- 
■*- sentations, but even its particular figures or phrases, 
come promptly to our aid, when we are trying to reach 
the truth of nature. The living Word is that which sets 
forth what the Creator declares in the very realities re- 
ferred to. In the things that are made is the divine 
thought, — whether the things are presented immediately 
to the senses, or represented to the mind in words. 
Scripture is of its own kind, but in the common order 
of thought. It is not the possession of specialists ; but 
has to do with universal religious faith, and with nature 
as depending upon God, and known in the common con- 
sciousness. It sets forth the words which the Creator 
spoke in things that were made, words which man is to 
hear, according to St. Augustine, not with his bodily 
ears ; for God " speaks in the truth itself, if any one is 
ready to hear with the mind, not with the body." ^ If, 
therefore, we desire to hear God speak in the truth itself, 
as the author of Genesis heard him speak, we shall avoid 
the anachronism of trying to find the discoveries of mod- 
ern science in that ancient form of knowledge and faith. 
We shall bear in mind that the relation of the Creator 

1 De Civitate Dei, lib. xi. c. 2. 



74 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

to his works is the truth itself, no matter how little or 
how much those works may have disclosed their secrets 
to human inquiry. God made the world, in whatever 
way man may conceive or represent the world. The fresh 
witness of the morning is not to be contradicted or cor- 
rected by the dry brilliancy of midday. The world that 
was made, in whole and in detail, is the world that con- 
tinues to be made, that always presents itself in some 
phase of its well-ordered harmony to common sense and 
universal intelhgence. 

In studying the Scripture testimony to man's moral 
beginning, however, we have to do with two accounts in 
Genesis, often treated as in part at least varying narra- 
tions of the same facts, with no very serious effort to 
ascertain the essential difference between them. We 
have nothing to do here with critical inquiries about 
different documents. Our concern is only with the 
sense of what is written. Any distinction in the sense 
must be unavoidable, obvious to the most uncritical 
reader, when once pointed out, or the distinction may 
be held not to exist. But, on the other hand, if the dis- 
tinction be easily marked, and its application brings out 
clearly the unity and coherency of the parts, then the 
distinction is presumably real and necessary. 

What, then, is the distinction which assigns its own 
sphere to each narration ? Simply this : that the first ac- 
count, including the first chapter of Genesis and three 
verses of the second, contemplates universal nature as 
the completed Cosmos, and sets forth the creative work 
in relations of space ; while the account that follows, 
beginning with the fourth verse of the second chapter, 
and going on in the story of Eden, regards nature as in- 
volving development in relations of time, and sets forth 



GENESIS COSMICAL AND IONIAN. 75 

creation with respect chiefly to the ceon, or world-history. 
In the first account we have fiats of consummation, the 
work of Elohim, who spake and it was done, whose 
thought and will are realized and reflected upon in dis- 
tinctions and groups of things conceived as complete 
and very good. The second account brings before us the 
work of Jehovah Elohim, of God ever existent and ever 
active, whose thought and will are revealed, not only 
in natural processes, but in spiritual and historic crea- 
tions as well, wherein things naturally good may fall 
into temporary evil. 

Go through the two accounts with this distinction in 
mind, and see if it be not essential. What is the sphere 
of the first narration ? Light, as distinguished from dark- 
ness upon the boundless abyss; earth, as distinguished 
from atmosphere and sky ; earth with its vegetation, as 
distinguished from seas ; sun, moon, and stars, as dis- 
pensing light and marking time ; distribution of animal 
life in water and air ; distribution of animal life upon 
the earth, ending in man: these are determinations of 
nature in space. Spoken from the depths of eternity, 
they are represented in the light of common days. The 
cosmical artist does not give us the perspective of time. 
His compositions are peremptorily foreshortened to the 
measure of, " He spake, and it was done." As pre- 
sented in nature, and as represented in Scripture, the 
groups of created things strike the sense and govern the 
common intelligence, though having no more to tell di- 
rectly of interior development and natural duration than 
have Michael Angelo's pictures in the Sistine Chapel. 
The original aurora flashes upon the background of 
chaos at the word. The celestial clock-work is set in 
order with omnipotent abruptness. All the prolific parts 



76 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of creation are produced in full career. The creation is 
punctual, simultaneous, complete, — universal harmony 
and happy correlation. The different sections contemplate 
no verifiable order of time. Hence, they may be divided 
conventionally by common days before the sun is said 
to have been set in heaven. " For what man possessed 
of reason," asks Origen, "would deem that a first and 
second and third day, evening and morning, came to pass 
without sun, moon, and stars ? " ^ The infinite concep- 
tions of divine achievement and divine repose are com- 
mended to the feeble memory of mankind by association 
with the week of ordinary work, rounded by a day of rest, 

— according to the plain understanding of St. Augustine, 
that though we cannot have evening but from the setting 
of the sun, nor morning but from his rising, the period 
of six days was still made use of in the narrative, not as 
if God required time or could not create all things at 
once, but because by this number the perfection of his 
works was signified. ^ 

Try the second account. We have come to genera- 
tions, — a genesis of things in a different order of thought. 
It is the order of thought contemplated by our Lord when 
he said, " My Father worketh hitherto." Withdrawn from 
the luminous outlines and objective coloring of space, we 
have passed into the indistinguishable depths of time. 
We have to do with physical change and organic develop- 
ment moving mysteriously on to world-history. There is 
a chaotic period of crude material and creative energy be- 
fore any plant or herb of the field had grown in the earth, 

— a chaos of negations, no rain, no man to till the ground. 
Creation is not the completed work, but the continuing 

1 Quoted in Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 135. 

2 De Civitate Dei, lib. xi. c. 7, and 30. 



GENESIS COSMICAL AND IONIAN. 11 

process. The day when the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens is an aeonian day. There is a striking 
absence of chronological exactness, whether as respects 
the origin of things or the progress of man towards his 
recognized place and character in history. The human 
race is represented, not as developed and mature in func- 
tion, chief of the works of God, but as inchoate and pro- 
gressive, coming forth from earthly elements into vital 
being. The organic perfectness of humanity, created 
male and female, honored and blessed with an endow- 
ment of fruitfulness and a commission to rule over the 
works of God, gives place to individual experience and 
effort in a certain subjection and serviceableness to sur- 
rounding nature. A garden becomes the narrow scene 
of a drama without assignable limits of duration, just as 
the conventional week afforded a convenient method for 
marking off the different parts of a visible universe with- 
out assignable limits of extension. Man is set to fill up 
actual days in the garden, to dress and keep it. He ac- 
quires instruction about his manner of living, — what 
to eat and what not to eat. He touches the border-land 
of science, — observation, nomenclature. He comes to 
the consciousness of social needs. Animal or intellec- 
tual isolation is not good. " Male and female " become 
" man and woman " in a social and spiritual correspond- 
ence, "husband and wife," in a conjugal destiny and 
marriage institution. Man's genesis as a creature of 
God's moral government ensues in process of time upon 
his genesis in the order of the physical creation. There 
is indicated an awakening out of the deep sleep of ani- 
mal existence — through observation, comparison, reflec- 
tion — to love and worship, to law and discipline, to the 
hope of a spiritual career. 



78 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Here is a progress, as I have said, in time, — not time 
measured, not time told off in days, weeks or years, but 
time as belonging to conscious being — life-time. In 
awakening life there is ever new trial. The senses are 
quickened. Curiosity refuses to sleep. There is an in- 
stmct of freedom and self-possession, a growing confi- 
dence of being able to take care of one's self, a tendency 
to experimental knowledge at all risks, possibly even a 
pride in refusing to be governed by reasonable restric- 
tions and warnings. In fine, there is a fall at length from 
an earlier simplicity of faith and obedience'. Generic 
humanity is pictured under conditions of temptation 
which every child can apprehend, and as acting with an 
immaturity of judgment and character which every child 
in some way illustrates. But with transgression there is 
announced a change. Life becomes moral discipline, in 
distinction from native innocency. There is no going 
back to the simple constitutional goodness to which 
transgression cannot be imputed. The whole history of 
good and evil in the world comes in this way to its orig- 
inal epitome and rehearsal. 

If the distmction set forth be one grounded in the 
nature of things, if it be self-evident that the days which 
it requhes the completed orbs of space to make are not 
days which can denote the duration of the process by 
which those orbs were made, then the days in question 
are at once resolved into elements of literary representa- 
tion. The quasi day's-works are a mode of summing up 
and distinguishing the vast effects exhibited to common 
observation in the ordering of nature, which effects are 
summarily referred to the word of the Creator. They 
also furnish an ideal type of legitimate human effort 
and rest. But, especially as marking a modest range of 



GENESIS COSMICAL AND IONIAN. 79 

verification really open to us, the distinction is impor- 
tant. A writing is properly verified in the order of 
thought in which it is conceived, and to which it is ad- 
dressed. The scripture of common observation is not 
verified in terms of transcendental physics, nor the scrip- 
ture of common inward experience in terms of tran- 
scendental metaphysics. There may be conceptions in 
science, or even in mythology, which we accept as ideally 
true, without the power to test their objective reality ; 
and these may help to explain other conceptions which 
we accept as true simply because we can and do appre- 
ciate their fidelity to nature. But in comparing the 
plain language of Genesis with the common sense of 
things, we have apparently as little concern with geo- 
logical periods for construing the six day's-works as we 
have with St. Augustine's mythological theory that " let 
there be light " refers to the creation of angels, in con- 
struing the fall. For, supposing that '' let there be light " 
does refer in some secondary way to the creation of 
angels, and that, as St. Augustine further sets forth,^ 
part of the angels fell into the darkness from which the 
light was divided, thus determining two hostile states, 
which were to make the new creation of God the theatre 
of their strife ; still, as this setting-forth is beyond the 
whole range of reality with which we are acquainted, 
we pass it by, as belonging to an order of unverifiable 
conceptions. 

Let us therefore take the cosmical genesis as simply 
scenery and prelude, with reference to an aeonian revela- 
tion of God in human history. 

A garden which man is set to keep and dress is no 
strange thing. A tree allegorically named is likely to 

1 De Civitate Dei, lib. xi. c. 9. 



80 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

be not of an extinct species. All life has its proper 
nourishment, its authorized enjoyment, the law of its 
best and longest career. This law transgressed by any 
forbidden indulgence, e\il begins to be known in con- 
trast with good; and death, no longer marking the 
necessary goal of existence, shadows the progress and 
obstructs the achieving energy of life. Fruit which is 
a desire to the eyes, animal appetite, precipitate curi- 
osity, and rash ambition of new knowledge, whether of 
good or evil, — this tempting solicitation from below 
creeping darkly up to the height of an intellectual ar- 
gument, as it was the original, so is it the universal, 
temptation of man. Here is no violent assault, nothing 
but quiet and plausible suggestion, wholly within the 
range of natural motives, yet without the due apprehen- 
sion of natural consequences, — the easy and unawed 
movement of a moral nature in need of prohibitory in- 
junctions, but prone to unreflecting determinations, and 
liable, with no excited consciousness of wrong intent, 
yet with a certain deliberate purpose of self-gratification, 
to disregard the rational persuasions of duty ministered 
from above. It is the ancient and universal error. It 
imports natural infirmity. It discredits spiritual dignity. 
It is of a piece with the latest yielding to temptation ; 
only, being conceived as at the beginning of moral agency, 
when the human mind was open to the voice of God in 
nature, but not to the same voice articulated in the 
parental and social guardianship that watches over the 
actions of ordinary childhood, the fall of the first pair is 
referred directly to the judgment of God, and so the 
highest sanction is given to the subsequent verdicts of 
the human conscience. 

But if in the fall man was stung with the knowledge 



GENESIS COSMICAL AND IONIAN. 81 

of evil, the knowledge of good was not to be denied him. 
He did not fall from the guardianship of God. He did 
not fall from the calling of faith and obedience. The 
good still beckoned to him. The voice of duty still pur- 
sued him. Hope still went before him. But life and 
history assume at once a dualistic character. A bad 
suggestion fulfilled in a disloyal act opens the door to 
discord, prevarication, contradiction. The man and the 
beast are contradistinguished in the same body and soul. 
Divine service is alloyed with self-seeking. The loss of 
inward peace brings on a conflict with outward nature. 
The processes of life are mysteriously flavored with the 
sentence of death; and death itself is armed with a 
moral sting, a new and punitive terror. The serpent of 
temptation has entered upon his typical function as 
both beast and false prophet. Wherever peace on earth 
is violated, or there is war in heaven, there is the 
"dragon of the prime," to be bound, cast out, killed, 
but again to live and act whenever that first falsehood 
is repeated — that man by himself, man in virtue of 
appetite, intellect, or ambition, shall be as God. Against 
such a suggestion there is the girding of man for his 
moral struggle. Man did not stumble that he might 
fall ; but rather through his fall there came the prompt- 
ing to more wary and virtuous endeavor, to a conscious 
and principled reaction against wrong, the promise and 
potency of the Creator's redeeming work. 

In the Scripture genesis, nature sums up the thiogs 
that are made ; and there is one supernatural Maker — 
God. Whether the works be conceived as complete ia 
space, or the divine operation be represented as going on 
in time, the Creator and Mover is one and the same. 
This exhaustive distinction implies that man, as a crea- 

6 



82 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ture, had his original motives and laws of conduct from 
his Creator, under outward conditions which the Creator 
had arranged. If, then, human nature was constituted 
not to realize spontaneously an ultimate and perfect form 
of action, but to be taught by its own failures and defi- 
ciencies to depend upon continual help from above ; if 
human nature was peculiarly liable to transgress the law 
of life, when there was everything to learn as to what the 
law of life is ; it becomes a fact of the utmost significance 
that man was constituted to hear the voice of his Creator 
from within and from without. By the nature of man's 
powers, as well as by the nature of things with which 
man had to deal, the Creator shaped experience, fash- 
ioned thought, inspired conviction, and so led on to the 
very language in which the divine teaching should be 
afterwards rendered. Man was encompassed by natural 
law, which was the effective vehicle of instruction, of 
warning, of judgment, perfectly adapted to convert the 
rational soul from delusive aims and lead it on toward 
its proper perfection. 



CHAPTER III. 

MOEAL DEVELOPMENT FROM DISCOVERIES OF LAW. 

np^HE Scripture conception of primitive man as pass- 
-*- ing from original innocence to positive moral disci- 
pline by disobedience to a divine command, was inter- 
preted by St. Augustine as involving the certainty, not 
only that all mankind would fall in the same way, but 
also that this voluntary defection w^ould become a per- 
manent habit of existence and a final bond of social 
organization for a very large proportion of the human 
race.^ 

This interpretation assumed that the divine adminis- 
tration of law, seen to be universally corrective in its 
moral intention, was to be not universally remedial in 
its personal effects. Hence the kingdom of darkness, 
the profane state, would naturally be developed and 
strengthened in constant struggle with divine law as 
exemphfied in the holy state or kingdom of God. The 
gloomy support which this theory of human destiny has 
in the conflicting moral tendencies of mankind is only 
too apparent. But, as Augustine himself intimates, the 

^ In hoc primo homine, qui primitus factus est, nondum quidem se- 
cundum evidentiam, jam tamen secundum Dei prasscientiam, exortos 
fuisse existimemus in genere humano societates tanquam civitates duas. 
— De Civitate Dei, lib. xii. c. 27. 



84 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ultimate issues of the divine government of the world are 
not in evidence with us. They are subjects for relig- 
ious faith and rational anticipation. What we are now 
concerned to verify is the practical efficiency and spir- 
itual aim of law with reference to transgression, as taught 
in the Scripture of the fall. Are the penal consequences 
of wrong-doing as much in favor of man's final rectitude 
as they are against his primitive errors ? 

It speaks well for the nature of things, that man in his 
immaturity should not go on in error and misdoing with- 
out being arrested and instructed by the consequences 
that wait upon his actions. Outward nature is so ad- 
justed to interior consciousness as with it to constitute 
an unfolding and progressive law of conduct, involving 
the conditions of well-being, and even of being at all so 
far as our bodily organization is concerned. 

A law of life is such in contradistinction to everything 
negative or injurious to life in whatever degree. The law 
of life is a law to which nothing is indifferent. Whatever 
is not for life is for not-life, — that is, for death. No meas- 
ure of anything is indifferent to the law of life ; though 
what is conducive to life, may be far from ensuring im- 
mortality, and what makes for death need not reach the 
ultimate effect in a minor degree of its application. 

The elements, earth, air, fire and water, are related to 
life; and this relation is regulated by law. Pass the 
limit within wliich either of these elements is condu- 
cive to life, and instantly you are in the realm of death. 
Earth is good. It affords us a theatre of action, pro- 
ductive fields and gardens for the nourishment of life ; 
but do not let yourself be thrown upon the earth in any 
rash or accidental way, lest you fall under the law of 
death. Water is an element of life; but disregard 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 85 

the law and measure of its use, and at once it shows 
itself the minister of death. The floods can exact a 
heavy tribute of us, can even dismiss our breath to the 
common air, whose law we must also obey for our lives. 
And fire ? How genial and vital in serviceable relations ! 
But how sharply it warns us of its fatal power, if we so 
much as touch it in an unlawful way ! In its large in- 
tention it is good as the beneficent sun. Transgress that 
intention — it becomes deadly as Moloch or Gehenna. 
Only, here as elsewhere, the creative intention reaches 
beyond the incidental suffering and loss incurred by 
transgression, and contemplates the paramount and per- 
manent good of obedience. 

Relatively to conscious well-being at any moment, 
therefore, we find in our world-elements a limit of good 
and a possible beginning of evil. Nor do we look to find 
any product of these elements that shall not exhibit the 
same distinction. To everything that can nourish or 
protect life there is the measure of its wholesome use ; 
while too much or too little is a divergence from the 
perfect law. There is no fruit which is not forbidden 
fruit, when one transgresses the proper mode and degree 
of its use ; no tree of life whose fruit does not hold out 
the possible knowledge of good and evil. Life itself is 
at stake, not only upon our having the things provided 
for its nourishment, but upon our treating them accord- 
ing to the kindly intention which has adapted them to 
our service. There may be that which to us is wholly 
forbidden. Good for something, it is not good for us. 
It is on this account that life is developed under strict 
guardianship. Obedience to parents is first a law of 
existence, that it may be afterwards a commandment 
with promise. 



S6 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Beset with dangers, humanity knows good, and remains 
in happy ignorance of evil by checking the motions of 
a meddlesome or ambitious curiosity, and cheerfully 
consenting not to judge for itself as to what is advan- 
tageous or otherwise in advance of trustworthy informa- 
tion. The law of truth is laid up in the things that 
are made. It is a law that can be marked and learned, 
so that the hidden wisdom shall more and more disclose 
itself. But our law of learning is, to think divine thoughts 
under divine guidance, not of ourselves to be as gods, 
knowing good and evil. It is the beginning of death to 
pluck and eat presumptuously ; for so we overstep the 
boundary of good in order to acquire a disastrous knowl- 
of good and evil. To know all things in their true rela- 
tion to the satisfaction of right desires, — this is indeed 
the wisdom by which the earth is founded, and the un- 
derstanding by which the heavens are established. This 
wisdom " is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her." ^ 
But this wisdom is laid hold of by docile obedience. It 
lays hold of the self-confident and disobedient through 
disappointment and correction. Nature brings home to 
us the consequences of disregarding her law ; and so the 
spiritual judgment is developed and fortified by motives 
of action and means of discipline drawn from the distinc- 
tion of good and evil in what pertains to the physical 
life. 

He by whose wisdom the earth is founded, and by 
whose understanding the heavens are estabhshed, knows 
the best way of bringing his wisdom and understanding 
to bear upon finite faculties ; what can be done by warn- 
ing, what can be done by correction. But he to whom 
anything is forbidden upon pain of death, by necessary 

1 Prov. iii. 18. 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 87 

implication is both mortal and ignorant. He is a crea- 
ture liable to prove his mortality by the mistake of a 
moment ; a creature of moral judgment, however, on 
whom the thought of dying, as a consequence of trans- 
gression, is designed to operate in favor of obedience. 
Instruction avails little without experience. But if the 
most inexperienced person not only does what is prejudi- 
cial to physical hfe, but what is contrary to spiritual duty 
at the same time, the physical injury is complicated with 
the moral defection. It is the worst kind of fall, if it 
be the least degree of it. The fault of the free agent is 
judged in the fatahty of physical law. Something is lost 
that cannot be regained. The tree of life, conceived as 
the largest possibility of well-being in the nature of 
things is interdicted ; and probation falls by a wise 
arrangement to worse physical conditions for the sake of 
better spiritual training. 

So far, at least, the Scripture drama of the fall is the 
drama of universal experience. All men have occasion 
to verify the representation in themselves and in others. 
All men make their appearance in the world not having 
sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression ; all 
are occupied about natural things before coming to the 
consciousness of spiritual relations ; all have, by and by, 
broken a command in partaking of what they were natu- 
rally, and it may be formally, forbidden to touch; all 
fall into worse conditions, whether as respects what they 
do or what they suffer, than might have been theirs 
under the good providence of the Father ; all know what 
it means to hear the voice of God within saying, " Where 
art thou ? " " What is this that thou hast done ? " All 
are warned that there is no return to original innocency, 
as by the sword of the cherubim flashing upon an awak- 



88 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ened moral vision. To all there is the lot of mortality ; 
but to those who have knowingly sinned death is armed 
with a peculiar sting, so that physical death has a darker 
significance as the wages of sin, and life is no longer the 
fulness of life when the law of life has been broken. To 
all there is hope in that Seed of promise, whose is the 
victory over temptation ; and for all there is conceivably 
the possibility of a new access to the tree of life, in the 
spiritual paradise of God. 

But is this simple truth of nature really what is con- 
templated in the Scripture narrative ? The question is 
not insignificant, for the reason, among others, that this 
truth of nature has been allowed to fall very much into 
the background, that men might picture to themselves 
unearthly and preternatural things : a tree of knowledge 
and a tree of life, — not in an allegorical, but in a literal 
sense; a personal enemy of great power and cunning 
speaking in a serpent ; and the Creator himself holding 
sensible intercourse with man, notwithstanding the uni- 
form representation of Scripture to the effect that God 
cannot be recognized by the senses, but is to be known 
and worshipped in the spirit. If a Scripture contain 
truth for all ages, then the cast and coloring of its own 
date should not contradict the revelation of later times. 
Accordingly, while the Pentateuch is marked with the 
early tendency of mankind to interpret the inward voice 
as proceeding from outward things, and to think of the di- 
vine power as so enshrined in sensible objects as to point 
out some objects for special manifestations of the divine 
Presence, this tendency is not left to utter itself without 
restraint, but is carefully guarded, that it may not inter- 
fere with a purely spiritual conception of the Supreme 
Being. No image — no likeness of anything in heaven 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 89 

above or in the earth beneath — could so much as sym- 
bolize to the worshipper the infinite One, whose attributes 
the created universe could but inadequately shadow forth. 
This transcendent and inscrutable Godhead was guarded 
by special legislation in the Decalogue itself, besides being 
vindicated by the rebuke of all gratuitous attempts on 
the part of prophetic souls to penetrate the secret things 
of the Eternal. Any but the most simply spiritual ren- 
dering of the Mosaic Genesis will have the effect of con- 
forming the story to the type of ordinary mythology. 
Why not, then, allow ourselves to see in the story at 
once, if not a history, then at least a conception of some- 
thing possible in history ? Let us therefore inquire what 
elements of thought, if any, inspiration can be supposed 
to have given us in the original discipline of law, that 
are not identical with those given us in common experi- 
ence. What is there in the ancient way of thinking that 
is essentially different from the modern wisdom ? And 
what hinders the truth of old time from being recognized 
and fulfilled in the truth of the latest days ? Doubtful 
constructions of Scripture cannot appropriate the au- 
thority of inspiration. Hence it is well that sacred 
words should mark for us, if they will, a certain meas- 
ure of distinct reality. 

In what words, then, do we find the law of life before 
the fall summed up ? " And the Lord God commanded 
the man, saying, ' Of every tree of the garden thou mayest 
freely eat [eating thou shalt eat] : But of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: 
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely 
die [dying thou shalt die].' " Here is certainly the com- 
mon law of physical life raised to the dignity of a moral 
requirement by being conceived as the command of the 



90 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Creator himself for man's preservation and welfare. It 
says to man, in effect : You are of a mortal nature ; your 
life, such as it is, has its proper nourishment, and you 
may freely partake of it; but there are limits within 
which good things are good for you, and beyond which 
you are liable to know them not simply as good, but as 
evil also. Be content with knowing things as good; and 
do not push your indulgence to that forbidden degree 
where the knowledge of good passes into the knowledge 
of evil ; for that is the beginning and the way of death. 
A law this, indisputably divine, adapted to a nature that 
is of the earth earthy, sweet and wholesome, but very 
liable to be transgressed through the serpent-like mov- 
ings of sense, appetite, and curiosity ; yet to be faithfully 
administered withal, that man may lay up the treasure 
of moral teaching even at the cost of physical suffering 
and decay. 

The common law of mortality, recognized in the divine 
command as in the universal experience, is incompatible 
with the idea that " the tree of the life," so called, implied 
any assurance or possibility that there was originally 
open to man a way of escape from physical death in the 
simple eating of its fruit. "Lest he reach forth his 
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live 
forever," is, to be sure, in our version, the reason as- 
signed for man's expulsion from the garden. But the 
expression rendered " forever " has the law of its mean- 
ing in a Hebrew word corresponding to the Greek aion ; 
and this word, according to Gesenius, does not stand for 
duration without limits, but for duration whose hmit in 
the future "is to be determined by the nature of the 
subject." We are thus referred to reality for the mean- 
ing of a phrase; and certainly tlie phrase in question, 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 91 

referred to reality, cannot justify the idea that man's 
original £eon of physical life was "forever," or might 
have been " forever," in the absolute sense. " Forever," 
according to the measure of a man, is not forever in the 
absolute sense ; and our English Bible, however it may 
suggest, certauily refuses to corroborate, such a sense in 
its customary use of the expression. We have " forever " 
used again and again where the duration referring to no 
assignable limits is nevertheless limited in the nature of 
the enduring thing. Thus, " a servant forever " ^ means 
simply that the servant is not to be set free during his 
life-time ; and that " the earth abideth forever," ^ is noth- 
ing against the teaching that the earth may at some 
period be dissolved. A man's " forever " of earthly exist- 
ence is the unknown but not infinite period of physical 
life ; and if that " forever " is to be hved to the utmost 
of its natural possibility, it is plain that the relation of 
life to the elements that support and nourish it should 
be wholly in accordance with the organic law of being. 
Disturb this relation, and a man will not live out all the 
days of his "forever," limited as the number of those 
days may be. When the life itself is deteriorated, the 
life-period is prejudiced. The negation of life — that is, 
death — enters at the point where the law of life is trans- 
gressed ; and the crisis of death will not fail to sum up 
all transgressions of life's law. 

By the same compulsion of reality we have a natural 
interpretation of what is said about the trees of the gar- 
den. When St. Paul would make use of persons under- 
stood to be historical in a representative and mystical 
way, he takes occasion to say : " Which things are an 
allegory." But there are things which are marked as 
1 Deut. XV. 17. 2 Eccl. i. 4. 



92 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

allegorical by their very names, of which things it would 
be superfluous to say either that they are allegorical or 
that they are not reahstic. Thus the distinction between 
the natural and the metaphorical trees of Eden is boldly 
indicated, — the realistic detail including all the natural 
resources of life contemplated, namely, " every tree that 
is pleasant to the sight and good for food." It would 
appear, then, that the metaphorical detail could not be 
reckoned as an addition to the realistic inventory ; for, if 
one has included every object of a given kind, no more 
objects of that kind are in the account. Hence the 
metaphorical detail may sum up all the resources of 
life in then- relation to man's duty and destiny as a 
rational creature, conscious of being under law. As in 
the paradise of the Apocalypse the tree of life stands for 
the various resources of life in theu^ unity, — though there 
are twelve manner of fruits, the yield of every month, 
with leaves of healing virtue, — so in the earthly paradise 
" the tree of the life " may stand for all the natural re- 
sources of the garden, in their unity of relation to the 
healthy nourishment of man in the world. Similarly, 
" the tree of the knowledge of good and evil " may stand 
for the same resources of life, however various, in one 
relation — the relation to their possible misuse. Trans- 
gress that measure of use within which they bring the 
knowledge of good, and you pass into that abuse of good 
which brings the knowledge of evil in addition to the 
knowledge of good, — good and evil. 

And this construction does not appear foreign to the 
Hebrew manner of speaking. For, as we may grant 
that we should not be grammatically forbidden to regard 
the two spiritually named trees as real objects, com- 
ing in for special mention by means of the conjunction 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 93 

rendered " also," so it may be urged that the same con- 
junction is used to connect words strictly in apposition, 
or to connect clauses when the latter expression resumes 
the former by way of explanation.^ Thus we might 
read : " And out of the ground made the Lord God to 
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for 
food ; even the tree of the life, and the tree of the knowl- 
edge of good and evil ; " all the trees being taken con- 
cretely as one tree in their relation to the support of 
life, all being taken as one, also, in their common liabil- 
ity to pass into the service of death. 

But the truth is always too true, too essential and 
deeply interfused, to be very dependent upon literary 
form or verbal criticism. Conceive " the tree of life " 
and " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil " to be 
nominal, or conceive them to be real, they are equally 
allegorical. They are signs of a reality that does not 
belong to the signs alone. They symbolize potencies 
that inhere in v>^hatever can properly minister to the 
nourishment of human life. As man's trial cannot be 
confined to one act, so neither can it be limited to one 
object, but is co-extensive with the vast environment and 
diversified productions that describe the range of his act- 
ual experience. If Adam and Eve transgressed a special 
command about a special object, that typical transaction is 
blended with common experience, the veil of universal na- 
ture is thrown over it, and it becomes the figure of man's 
natural history from age to age. A particular tree for- 
bidden to man's touch, by an audible voice, upon pain of 
death, — this could imply no higher authority than that 

1 See the examples of tliis use referred to by Gesenius : 1 Sam. 
xxviii. 3, "in Eamah, even in Ms own city ; " Dan. iv. 13, "a watcher, 
even a holy one ; " Is. Ivii. 11, " have I not held my peace, even of old ? " 



94 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of tlie Creator. The gradually maturing conviction of a 
forbidden use of anything in nature, working upward from 
instinct through observation and experience, till it reaches 
the moral sense and becomes a law in conscience, — this 
can imply no lower authority than that of the Creator. 
The signal and exemplary thing shows what is inherent 
in all things. Of all real elements and objects it may 
be said, " which things are an allegory." Our Lord took 
the allegories by which he illustrated the reahties of 
the spiritual realm from every realm of nature. He 
himself is the bread, water, wine, — all the nourishment 
which the spirit needs. Yet he is the source of knowl- 
edge to men, — not of good simply, but of good and evil 
possibly ; since he puts men on trial with respect to the 
spiritual life, as nature puts men on trial with respect to 
the physical life. Hence St. Paul's anxiety about the 
Corinthian Church. For, he says, " I fear lest by any 
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, 
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity 
that is in Christ." The higher the revelation of right- 
eousness, the lower the fall of men, if they are seduced 
into disobedience. From the revelation of physical life 
and common mortality in primitive man to the revelation 
of spiritual Hfe and immortality in the man Christ Jesus, 
the principle of trial is one. It is inseparable from man's 
constitutional freedom and responsibility, as related to 
the divine revelation at every conceivable stage of its 
progress. 

But in the Scripture relating to man's earliest error, 
we have not only the law which he transgressed, with 
the penalty annexed, but the judicial construction and 
application of the same. God's law is the truth. In the 
Eden administration the truth contemplated is the or- 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 95 

ganic law, — the law which reaches its fulfilment in the 
subjects of it by the ordinance of universal nature, 
within no definite limits of time, and with no need of 
ministerial interference. It is a divine judgment and a 
divine execution, when the deterioration of life and the 
deterioration of outward things are made to ensue by 
a process of inscrutable change, as a testimony against 
the transgression of law. Man was warned of the 
natural hability of unsuspecting innocency and inex- 
perience to go astray, was advised of the penalty to 
ensue upon disregarding the dictates of a wisdom above 
his own, a wisdom available only on condition of docility 
and obedience ; what, then, in effect, was the judgment 
and the penalty meted out to the self-excusing, but dis- 
enchanted pair ? It was that disturbance of natural 
harmony, that painful exercise of life's functions, by 
which we mark the change from the unconsciousness 
of infancy to the struggle of life, — a change which im- 
ports nothing less than that the struggle will inevita- 
bly end in physical death. Man having misused the 
elements of life, the elements of life are at odds with 
man. Outward nature is divided, according as it takes 
the side of the spirit or of the flesh in human nature. 
" Cursed above all cattle " is the serpent, as the type of 
that animal seduction which, in the complex constitution 
of man, can move stealthily to the violation of spiritual 
order. Now natural processes are become punitive in 
a degree. The labor of woman, and the toil of man, the 
social mastership of the strong, the social subjection of 
the weak, the common compulsion of natural conditions, 
all are more stringent and coercive than a free and 
deliberate dutifulness would require them to be. The 
products of the ground are distributed into symbols of 



96 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

a beneficent Providence, and symbols of a corrective 
discipline. The hope of mankind is in offspring, in the 
progress of the race toward a manhood that can tread 
temptation under foot ; yet this higher humanity will be 
developed by the suffering and death of the lower, whose 
destiny is to return to the dust whence it was taken, — 
the natural process of decay becoming obtrusive, and 
possibly abrupt, as a consequence of wrong-doing. In fine, 
the Eden life, the tree of life conceived as bringing the 
knowledge of good simply, is wholly withdrawn ; while 
the tree of a dualistic experience, the tree of the knowl- 
edge of good and evil, may be found in any wilderness of 
the world to which man's character may conduct him. 

Forbidden as we are to affect a final judgment as to 
personal character by outward semblances, would it not 
become us especially to heed the silence of Scripture as 
respects man in that mysterious remoteness, when no 
prophet of his own race has uttered a word for his direc- 
tion ? Is it not significant that a certain construction 
of the fall, which has been conspicuous by its presence 
in speculative divinity, is equally conspicuous by its 
absence in the original story? Here is no "covenant 
of life," but life itself ; no promise of impeccability to 
ensue upon a temporary or particular obedience ; no hint 
of how much the character of posterity might be involved 
in a single error of the first parents; no invasion of a 
mighty spiritual foe, or war of wiles to compass the ruin 
of an unsuspecting race in its " federal head ; " no de- 
nunciation of death, except as the law of death is insep- 
arable from the law of life ; no infliction of death but in 
the order of nature, and as a means of saving man from 
that other death, which takes place, according to St. 
Augustine, when God abandons the soul, as natural 



DEVELOPMENT UNDER LAW. 97 

death takes place when the soul leaves the body.^ We 
cannot conceive that God is deserting the souls of his 
offspring, when to moral discipline he adds a provident 
tenderness for their bodily welfare. What, then, is the 
natural and Scriptural conception of the fall ? Is it a 
spiritual catastrophe, or a moral espisode? Is it the 
total negation of man's communion with his Maker, or 
a practical warning that an undeveloped potency of holy 
character is not incompatible with a natural liability to 
sin ? Is it the prelude of a human society without 
hope, or of a divine revelation wherein reproof and 
correction are the infallible sign both of the children's 
birthright and of the Father's faithfulness ? Does it in- 
volve the condemnation and castmg away of human na- 
ture, or does it mean that man was originally constituted 
to realize spiritual righteousness, not as punctual atten- 
tion to specific injunctions, important as such attention 
must be held to be, but rather as personal integrity and 
habitual loyalty, depending upon faith in the guidance 
from above ? 

1 Mors igitur animsB fit, cum earn deserit Deus ; sicut corporis, cum 
id deserit anima. — De Civitate Dei, lib. xiii. c. 2. 



PAET THIRD. 

THE PEINCIPLE OF JUSTIFICATION. 



" Is tlie law then against the promises of God ? God forbid : for 
if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily right- 
eousness should have been by the law. ... So that the law hath 
been our tutor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." 

Galatians iii. 21-24. 

"Cum vero Apostolus dicit justificari hominem per fidem, et 
gratis; ea verba in eo sensu intelligenda sunt, quern perpetuus 
Ecclesise Catholicae consensus tenuit, et expressit ; ut scilicet per 
fidem ideo justificari dicamur, quia fides est huraanse salutis in- 
itium, fundament um, et radix omnis justificationis, sine qua impos- 
sibile est placere Deo, et ad filiorum ejus consortium pervenire." 

Council of Teent : Decretum de Justificatione, caput viii. 

" Fides in Christum est pars et species, quse continetur sub no- 
tione generali fidei." 

Fkancisco Turretino: Institutio Theologiae Elencticse, vol. i. p. 516. 

" Certainly I have always considered that obedience, even to 
an erring conscience, was the way to gain light, and that it mat- 
tered not where a man began, so that he began on what came to 
hand and in faith ; and that anything might become a divine 
method of truth ; that to the pure all things are pure, and have a 
self-correcting virtue and a power of germinating." 

John Henry Newman : Apologia pro Yita Sua, p. 206. 



PART THIRD. 

THE PRINCIPLE OF JUSTIFICATION. 



CHAPTEK I. 

OF FAITH AS RELATED TO MAN'S DEPENDENCE AND 
PROGRFSS. 

"XT THAT we are taught in Scripture of man's first dis- 
^ ' obedience, as a spiritual fact in the order of nature, 
may be included within two negative statements : namely, 
first, man's original righteousness did not preclude his 
original sin ; and, secondly, man's original sin did not 
preclude a future progress in righteousness. 

Between these two negative terms we conceive the 
movement of living and progressive humanity, — what- 
ever may have been the nature of the primitive error. 

Exactly at this point there opens upon us the question 
of man's possible justification: what palliations of his 
fault; what law of righteousness applicable to him, 
things being as they are ; what hope in the discipline 
of divine judgments ; what redeeming quality in his own 
being ? The act of disobedience cannot be justified. Can 
the man from whom that act came be made just, and be 
recognized as righteous, — not according to some legal fic- 
tion, but because he is really acceptable to God, approved 
of men, and not without testimony to his inward har- 
mony with the universe in the peace of his own spirit ? 

There is an error, as we have already seen, which the 
fall logically disposes of, and puts aside forever. Man 



102 NATURE IX SCRIPTURE. 

is not to be as God in knowiQg good and evil. He is to 
know good and evil relatively, not absolutely. The abso- 
lute law of Ms perfection is in his Creator, not in bimseli 
He cannot act independently. Therefore it is for him to 
be loyally dependent, to be persuaded of the care and 
guidance of his Maker, to be persuaded of the di^dne 
wisdom and authority ruling in his life, iu order that 
this persuasion, or faith, may make him attentive and 
obedient to the communications of truth, and be ever- 
more the vital principle of right conduct. 

But faith is a spiritual energy, that comes by listening 
to truth, and grows with experience of life. Faith is 
imparted to the human spirit from above, and comes with 
the spiritual revelation of God, and with the spiritual 
growth of man. The physical constitution may enclose 
the spiritual germ, it cannot at first exhibit the full 
strength of spiritual character. The principle of right- 
eousness grows, or ought to grow, with the practical 
demands of righteousness. " Touch not, taste not," may 
be a divine command, a very salutary physical regulation, 
to be observed by the law of faith disposing to all right 
observance ; but faith would be the spiritual element of 
righteousness in the case, and without faith it would be 
impossible to please the Lawgiver, though the command 
were outwardly obeyed. But to fail in the specific act 
of faith is not of necessity to lose faith ; while " touch 
not, taste not, handle not," is possibly a very partial ex- 
pression even of outward requirement. Taking man for 
what he is, a creature to be developed according to his 
organic law, we can trust the divine Father to bring him 
up to righteousness in his own way and time ; and if 
so, we cannot believe that man becomes wholly alien to 
righteousness through the first unfaithful act. 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS, 103 

For, grant what we may as to possible deterioration or 
improvement of nature, we know that either the one or 
the other must go on according to the law of existence. 
No instant's action can take place or be judged alone. 
It belongs to a series. Only in the judgment of all that 
went before and all that shall come after in the individ- 
ual life, can the instant's action have the record of its 
true character. In the larger sphere of humanity as a 
whole, the same continuity and solidarity of development 
is observable through all the conflicts of history. The 
unripened fruit is not satisfying to the taste. But it is 
changing both in quantity and quality by the law of its 
creation ; and, if the fruit be good at last, there was no 
point in its progress when it was not good. So spiritual 
and moral manhood is ever passing through a transfor- 
mation ; while the vital flavor of any period in personal 
or collective human existence carries with it the divine 
judgment in the creative law, which determines its rela- 
tion to both the quahties that shall be revealed and the 
qualities that shall disappear. The Creator says : This is 
not your rest, as it is not your perfection. What has 
not reached its consummation has not reached the full 
demonstration of what it is. 

It is thus we conclude the aeon or life-time to be essen- 
tial to the life-quality ; exactly as the revelation of truth, 
natural or supernatural, by which experience is condi- 
tioned and character ripened, is essential to it. The de- 
tails of outward conduct are by no means unimportant. 
Eequirements and regulations that concern outward con- 
duct have their proper season and necessary use. But 
they do not give life. Justification is of life ; and life is 
of faith, — the spiritual source and energy of real virtue, 
the principle of genuine obedience to the law of truth. 



104 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Hence, faith appropriates, as tlie ground of assurance 
in action and of hope as to the results of action, not only 
the powers of the universe, but the persistency and dura- 
tion of those powers. A man's faith associates him not 
merely with the known, but with the unknown ; and so 
he prosecutes the trial of existence in a docile way, loyal 
not only to all that is known, but to all that is. 

The personal life is a profound mystery. One cannot 
know the difference between himself in this instant and 
himself in the next instant. We are in the process of 
creation. The mysterious differential element of quan- 
tity and quality does not define and measure itself in 
consciousness. Suppose a whole foregoing life to be 
summed up in a single practical expression ; the vital pro- 
cess does not pause. Other critical actions and other 
judgments are to come. And the judgments, so far as 
they are divine, will have in evidence not only the pre- 
vious trial, motive, and stress of circumstances, under 
which an action came to birth, but also the actor's reac- 
tion with regard to it. If the act be blameworthy, does it 
signify anything that the doer of the act looks back upon 
it with remorse and self-accusation ? If the offence be 
condemned, and the punitive woe overtake the offender, 
is it in his favor that he by and by recognizes and hon- 
ors the unfolding law of Goodness under which he suf- 
fers ? Moral discrimination may be slow, through the 
infirmity of our nature ; and may for that reason be 
quickened by terrifying examples of things permitted 
to take place only that they may be the more effectually 
and permanently disallowed. But to take the side of 
demonstrated evil is a self-destructive experiment, and 
man arrives at mature and suicidal wickedness, if at all, 
only through long and stern conflict with benevolent 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS. 105 

admonition and just authority. In history as we know 
it, this obdurate and malignant quality of disobedience is 
never, and in reason never can be, the sudden catastro- 
phe of an unschooled nature. As little, on the other 
hand, can a spiritual and final justification be realized on 
the ground of obedience in a single particular of lawful 
requirement, — or in all particulars of lawful require- 
ment during a period of discipline shorter than the actual 
maturing of personal character into its ultimate moral 
relation with the highest Authority may require. 

The law of faith cannot contemplate duty as capable 
of being adequately expressed by literal requirements, or 
duly guarded by literal prohibitions. When all the 
things that must be done, and all the thmgs that must 
not be done, have been officially defined and enacted, 
this law is only a shadow of life. Life itself is the 
reahty and revelation of law. The outward economy 
and discipline of government, in state or church, makes 
use of signs and sacraments wisely accommodated to the 
actions and relations of time, because these actions and 
relations furnish both the exercise and assurance of eter- 
nal life. All temporary judgment refers to the tribunal 
of last appeal. We may look upon actions as well-in- 
tentioned, or otherwise. We may insist that some things 
were worse done than we were entitled to demand, that 
other things were better done than anybody was entitled 
to expect ; though, whether we blame, justify, or applaud, 
we are sure that it is not in us to judge perfectly, either 
the actor or the act. Thus the faith which receives law 
from the Creator in the revelations of life is one with the 
faith which judges nothing before the time. Forbidden 
to set ourselves up as judges of our fellow-men, we are 
equally incompetent to judge ourselves. St. Paul, refer- 



106 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ring to faithfulness in his stewardship, not only counts 
it a small thing that he should be brought to any day or 
to any decision of men, but also declines to assume his 
justification on the ground that he is not conscious of 
wrong-doing. He is not his own final judge, but must 
await with others the coming Lord and Master of life ; at 
whose appearing the mature manifestation of personal 
character shall bring to each man his proper sentence 
from God.i 

This is in accord with all the teaching about justification 
in human experience. It is not only of faith as regards 
the reign of God, to whom all homage and obedience are 
due ; it is also of faith, as distinguished from demonstra- 
tion, in respect to the actions and efforts in which the 
signs of obedience and homage are made. The rule of 
what to do or what not to do outwardly cannot be a per- 
fect test of man's inward life. The law that undertakes 
to regulate conduct enters because of transgression, and 
brings with it the knowledge of sin, both as a matter of 
positive experience and of recognized human liability. 
But the justification of life passes by the evidence of for- 
mal obedience or formal transgression, in order to reach 
its true basis in the loyal mind and will, — faith working 
by love. Faith appeals in humility and penitence from 
all finite judgments to the All-judging ; faith accepts pres- 
ently and by anticipation all divine testimonies, however 
adverse to details of personal conduct, and so affirms 
and maintains the spirit, though not the absolute expres- 
sion, of perfect obedience. Hence, he is the just man 
who confides himself to God as the universal Justice ; 
not he who only says, " I have not knowingly broken 
the diviae commands." To avoid the forbidden thing 

1 1 Cor. iv. 3-5. 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS. 107 

shall make for your welfare, possibly save you from sud- 
den or premature death. To believe in God shall make 
for your righteousness, though it be the righteousness 
which condemns your past doings and acquiesces in death 
as their just due. The man called perfect and upright, 
fearinsj God and eschewino- evil, must not flatter himself 
that he is free from sin. The malefactor confessing 
his crimes and endurmg their punishment must not de- 
spair of justification. For justification under the reign 
of God goes beyond the present range of human relations 
and actions, is administered by the Judge of all, and is 
available to each one through the faith in God which 
is the denial of self. In fine, the justification of man 
implies on the part of God not only the acts of pardon 
and grace by which human confidence is awakened and 
sustained, but also the eternal administration of law in 
the spiritual creation from which all such acts proceed ; 
while, as regards man, the process of his renewal in right- 
eousness contemplates all the elements of life, — the nat- 
ural conditions of being, the seon of development, the 
Almighty and Eternal as Source of nature and Object of 
faith. He alone who causes his mind and will to be 
faintly apprehended in a growing human consciousness, 
who knows all his works, whose ordinance it is that the 
communication of Heaven's gift must condescend to 
earth's necessity, and the pursuit of glory, honor, and im- 
mortality, be complicated with the struggle for physical 
life, — He alone can conduct life to its final harmony 
and complete justification. 

The general history of man's spiritual development 
will, of course, be a history of faith, in the different 
phases of its manifestation. Faith, taking hold of the 
parts of the Creator's ways, brings to conception and 



108 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

action the rational creature's calling. Faith is the tap- 
root of our whole spiritual growth. If faith decays, 
manhood decays. If faith grows, manhood grows. Faith 
sees no perfection in past efforts, but accuses or excuses 
them as a medley of evil and good. Faith does not place 
personal perfection in the order of nature, but presses 
toward the mark for the prize of a high calling made 
known in the revelation of God. God, as conceived by 
faith, is the germ of truth springing up out of the earth. 
God, as the Word of revelation, is the Sun of Eighteous- 
ness looking down from heaven. Men must feel after 
God in the things that are made, if haply they may find 
him. But God is not far from every one of us, since in 
him we live and move and have our being. The blind 
groping of the past is ignorance, unbelief, sin, death. 
The docile pressing on toward the future is knowledge, 
faith, righteousness, life. Sensuous forms of worship 
have to be condemned as idolatries at length, that the 
image of the invisible God may be revealed in the hu- 
man spirit. The righteousness of faith is loyalty to the 
revelation of truth. 

Of course, faith is not an affair of formal logic, any 
more than of formal ethics. Faith has its conflicts of 
argument, and often the argument is pressed with a heat 
akin to the vital character of the question in debate. 
But faith combines the opposing forces of thought in a 
line of movement, which is the ruling persuasion of life. 
The limits of finite intelligence cannot defeat the evi- 
dence of an infinite Spirit. Would all the manifesta- 
tions of energy through boundless space and absolute 
duration be only equal to the demonstration of the in- 
finite Power ? How, then, shall Power, which is forever 
proving itself, be said ever to have been proved ? But 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS. 109 

the argTiment which exckides the quantitative demon- 
stration is essential to the qualitative demonstration; 
and between the two faith finds the idea of Divinity. 
So in all the feeling after God, as indicated in objects 
and processes wherein men are persuaded that haply 
they have found him, there are contrarieties of thought, 
thesis and antithesis ; while the reconciliation of con- 
trarieties, the synthesis of different movements, marks 
the progress of revelation. 

What is, in short, the natural history of religion 
among men ? ''I have found my God," says the 
credulous fetich- worshipper. "No," says the advanced 
thinker, "you are worshipping what is infinitely less 
divine than yourself. You are the image of your 
Maker." But by the law of nature each is moving in 
the way of divine revelation; for is there not a sign 
of the Creator in the rudest lump of matter, in order 
that the Creator may be unfailingly signified in the low- 
est order of mind ? There is also the idol of the tribe, 
and nations find their own gods ; but the better inspira- 
tion grasps the unity of things, and declares that God is 
one. Yet is there not a teaching and symbol of God in 
the parts of his ways, in order that man may at length 
adore the undivided Power he cannot comprehend ? 

If, then, God be one, where is he ? In what heaven 
does he reside ? On what mountain does he hold his 
earthly court ? " Here 1 " exclaims one. " There ! " points 
out another. But revelation satisfies both in deny- 
ing both. The reign of God does not disclose itself to 
geographical research, or even to celestial observation, 
but to the spirit in man : it is within, and it is every- 
where. What is the character of God's reign ? "Good ! " 
chants one part, "He has loaded us with benefits." 



110 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

"Evil," wails another part, "He has overwhelmed us 
with distresses." But both notes are harmonized in the 
revelation of righteousness as the aim of all divine judg- 
ments. Thus, while knowledge is increasing in opposite 
directions of thought, faith is the abiding loyalty to uni- 
versal Truth, the growing persuasion of absolute Good- 
ness. Yet, notwithstanding the continuous proofs of 
divine guidance in history, of eternal Power and God- 
head in things made, the fullest light of revealed truth, 
like the rising sun, shows ever a retreating world in 
such shadow and darkness, that it is described as rela- 
tively " without God and without hope." For God is 
light, and in Him is no darkness at all. 

1^0 age is without its own feeling after God. No age 
is without its own trial of faith. As in the world of 
matter, so in the spiritual world, not only does day utter 
speech unto day, but night unto night showeth knowl- 
edge. There are those who sleep in the day-time for the 
purpose of consulting the stars. There are those who 
shut their eyes upon the hght of theological systems that 
they may make investigations in the twihght of nature. 
Especially, when the professed representatives of spiritual 
reality become conventional, theatrical, dogmatic, then 
the devotees of physical science have their innings in 
the struggle for truth, and appear fresh, earnest, and 
aggressive. They may even insist that speculation and 
faith have no business outside the limits of induction, 
and that the organ of mental vision, like the bodily eye, 
has no vocation to inspect itself. The latest philosophy, 
however materialistic, does not, indeed, worship rude 
images, nor dote on refined ritualism, nor stand in awe 
of official parade. What Bacon calls idols, — " idols of 
the cave, of the tribe, of the palace, of the theatre," — 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS. Ill 

scientific philosophy looks down upon. It is feeling 
after the genuine force, the ruling law of the world- 
movement, in a word, God. What it shall find, how- 
ever, it will call by a name of its own. One philosophic 
seer finds that the setting forth of world-phenomena, 
as summed up in the experience of life, implies a per- 
sistent energy, to be called " Will." But it is will 
of such wily malignity that all attractions of life are 
merely the ruse by which the living are lured to suffer- 
ing and death. The " Will " of Schopenhauer is an idol 
of hideous features, to be superseded in less time than it 
took to set it up. It may be likened to King Stork. Its 
antithesis in the same line of thought is King Log, " the 
Unconscious " by name. The order of succession is an 
improvement upon the fable of the frogs. The features 
of the new idol can be seen in different lights, somewhat 
in accordance with the will of the observer. One does 
not quite despair by reason of " the Unconscious." But 
cannot criticism combine the arrangements of nature 
that indicate thought, and the vital energy of nature 
that affirms will, in a higher conception that shall de- 
clare a moral purpose? Yes. There is "the not our- 
selves that makes for righteousness." If this is not the 
true Divinity, it is something well found in the search 
for him. Indeed, the ablest and best-instructed criticism 
coming from the party of reputed opposition is destined 
to quicken the sense of reality in the party of a ruling 
faith, by the contribution it makes to the knowledge of 
the things that are made, and thus to the conception of 
the invisible Maker. On the other hand, a strong flavor 
of reality must rule in any system of religious doctrine, 
or else the altars of worship will seem to have been 
built to " the unknown " and " the unknowable." Still, 



112 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

the known is of a piece with the unknown. The Ee- 
vealed is also the Incommunicable. Whom men igno- 
rantly worship, he is evermore to be declared. 

But are there proofs of man's spiritual progress ? Is 
there hope of his reaching the goal ? What most deeply 
concerns our faith is the fact that the swing of human na- 
ture, this way and that way, in the struggle of thought and 
action, is not for its own sake. It is for the sake of the 
progress of humanity. It belongs to an onward move- 
ment, and develops in process of time the antithesis, not 
of this momentary tendency and that, but of the natural 
man and the spiritual man, the first man and the final 
man, the ages of darkness and the ages of light, times of 
ignorance and times of consummation. It is a mark of 
the Scriptures in their unity that they regard and inter- 
pret history with equal fidelity to the struggle of the 
hour and the consummation of the age. They place the 
hope of man's justification and acceptance with his Ma- 
ker, not in outward acts, but in the living spirit ; not in 
what a man is doing or going to do, but in what he is 
becoming or going on to be. It is this which consti- 
tutes them the classic and canon of man's moral develop- 
ment. The fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians depicts 
the spiritual glory of the second Adam on the dark 
background of mortal manhood as represented by Adam 
the first. It is in the relation of these two men that 
history through all ages is summed up in the Scriptures. 
If it had been distinctly revealed that the first man had 
personally reappeared on earth to be justified and glori- 
fied as the spiritually first-begotten of God, and Saviour 
of his race, it would have afforded no clearer assur- 
ance than we possess of the creative intention. For 
Christ's gospel is the gospel that was given to Adam as 



FAITH, DEPENDENCE, AND PROGRESS. 113 

weU as to Abraham, — the gospel of promised blessmg 
in the development of a promised Seed. As the elect 
man, the divine man, the First-begotten of the Father, 
is connected by natural descent with man as originally 
created by God ; so the man of the earliest creation and 
making of the race is bound by the law of faith to that 
course of spiritual development in his offspring which 
brought the spiritual man into the world to enthrone 
him as Head of the human brotherhood. The drama 
of justification opens with the drama of transgression. 
In the experience of the race, as of the individual, the 
outward man is perishing that the inward man may be 
renewed day by day. 

Having studied somewhat carefully the Scripture 
teaching as to man's natural insufficiency, as indicated 
in his first disobedience, together with the discipline of 
law for his reproof and correction, we have now, at the 
risk of some repetition, to study the same testimony in 
its bearing upon the inward law and discipline of faith 
for man's ultimate righteousness. For the first man 
made, no more than the last man born, can know what 
he is in himself, except by knowing what he is in rela- 
tion to the history of his race. 



CHAPTEE 11. 

AGAINST TRAKSCENDEXTAL XOTIOITS OF PRIMITIVE 
RESPONSIBILITY. 

T ET me remind my reader again, by way of apology 
-*--^ for what may seem a needless discussion, that we 
are concerned with human nature as exhibited in Scrip- 
ture ; not with the same as depicted by speculatists or 
as formulated in dogma. We want to understand what 
the story of the primitive pair as given in Genesis would 
naturally teach us, not only as to the real measure of 
their fault, but as to the hope of their recovery to recti- 
tude and favor. If their error required that they should 
be kept in hand by a tutor, by the constraints and cor- 
rections of law, was there an appeal at the same time 
addressed to their faith, looking to the inward revelation 
of paternal goodness in a spiritual sonship, which should 
honor the legal schooling by evincing its serviceableness 
to the eternal life ? 

In the training of immature natures a systematic ex- 
acrgeration of childish errors and faults is found to make 
against the development of a perfect character. The 
perfecting of mankind, as involving a divine governance 
of physical law and spiritual inspiration, would neces- 
sarily demand that candor of practical procedure on the 
part of the Creator which would naturally foster a sense 
of justice, and fortify the assurance of receiving just 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 115 

treatment on the part of the moral creature. On the 
other hand, the finite apprehension of illimitable au- 
thority and immeasurable power is naturally timid ; the 
reaction of wrong-doing often quickens this moral tim- 
idity into a servile prostration, which needs to be pa- 
tiently and condescendingly corrected ; while systematic 
theologians, settmg up for augurs and prophets of hu- 
man nature in its relations with Divinity, have been 
prone to take the auspices from their fears or ambi- 
tions rather than their faith, and even to make a virtue 
of regarding universal humanity as justly doomed to 
endless perdition by its first offence — for the greater 
glory of God in the redemption of the elect. 

Hence the inestimable value of our right of appeal. 
We can appeal from ourselves to our Maker ; from in- 
ferential and overwrought opinions and forebodings, 
whether of disinterested or designing judges, to the 
simple conceptions and hopeful predictions which are 
commended to us as bearing the marks of divine teach- 
ing and primitive procedure. We may interrogate the 
Scripture record with a pointedness and particularity 
comporting with the importance of the facts recorded, 
and so possibly learn something of how we are defended 
by our Advocate in the heavenly court. 

We seek a response from a recognized oracle of truth, 
on a question fundamental, long disputed, and still in 
debate. Did man fall " from the estate wherein he was 
created " by the first disobedience ; or, was " the estate 
wherein he was created " one involving the natural lia- 
bility to mistakes and sins, and placing the hope of 
coming to spiritual wisdom and goodness in the lessons 
of experience and the development of life ? More par- 
ticularly, was the first disobedience a catastrophe of the 



116 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

human race, — an act of so fatal an importance as to 
change radically the whole plan for the discipline of 
mankind, — or was it an immature act, the mark of 
undeveloped character under conditions of necessary 
trial, with simply that bearing upon human destiny, for 
evil or good, which is involved in the organic law of life 
and liberty asserted in every moral act ? Was the origi- 
nal sin of a character unique and transcendent, or was it 
personal, typical, the constitutional liability of the last 
earth-born man as of the first, and of the first in the 
same sense as of any other ? 

Our inquiry is not one of personal curiosity, but one 
which has appealed to the Source of light in the devout 
worship and anxious sacrifices of unnumbered genera- 
tions. If, then, the oracle is reticent or ambiguous, it is 
not for us to break through its reserve or to make its 
responses more clear. But if the oracle be charged with 
a judicial sentence of transcendent terror, then unmis- 
takable explicitness in the terms of the sentence becomes 
an indispensable element of justice. If the Scripture 
record lends itself reluctantly to an extreme construc- 
tion, — especially if such a construction can be referred 
to a change in mental parallax, or in the prevailing me- 
dium of thought, — we cannot throw the burden of later 
philosophies and figures of speech upon first statements ; 
nor can we support unnatural conceptions by an appeal 
to supernatural authority. If there be that in the reve- 
lation of Jesus Christ of which TertuUian could say : " It 
is credible, because it is foolish; it is certain, because 
it is impossible," we are to remember that not every- 
thing foolish is credible, and the impossible is not com- 
monly the true. 

As a matter of fact, however, our primitive Scripture 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 117 

meets us upon the ground of common sense and common 
faith. Eead the third chapter of Genesis for the sake of 
what is plainly said, though not without a parable. The 
sacred writer speaks to us as the prophet of God only 
by being " Nature's priest," rendering the realities of life 
in the name of the Author of life. The nature shown 
us is that nature of which we are a part ; the experience 
represented is the experience in which we all share, — 
the struggle of life and the certainty of death, the kindly 
fruits and the stinging thorns, the discipline of sorrow, 
the rewards of effort, the encouragement of hope. The 
harmony conceived as belonging to the constitution of 
things has given place to the disciplinary working of 
undeveloped powers, and the heaven that lies about in- 
fancy has faded into the light of common day. The trial 
which has evinced the capacity to receive instruction 
has proved, also, the proneness to error which needs 
iDstruction. Especially the law given for the control 
of piquant and dangerous physical solicitation, — the 
calm, remote, authoritative command, exacting faith, 
watchfulness, loyalty, — has not found due reverence. 
As respects the qualities born not of the will of the flesh 
nor of the will of man, but of God, man has proved 
himself in the spiritual nonage of flesh and blood, un- 
prepared to exemplify the reign of God as overruling 
sensual and social instincts. His rank in the order of 
nature corresponds with his place in the order of time ; 
he is the first, the natural, the earthly man, falling into 
the first, natural, earthly error ; the type of a universal 
spiritual nonage. 

What is the act recorded which determines this con- 
ception of original humanity ? Here it is : " And when 
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that 



118 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to 
make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat ; 
and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did 
eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they 
knew that they were naked : and they sewed fig-leaves 
together, and made themselves aprons."^ 

Considered in itself, and as literally taking place, this 
act has no peculiar mystery or conclusiveness. It is 
exactly what the sensual appetite is always prompting 
the children of nature to do, before they are disciplined 
to higher considerations. As a parable, its applica- 
tion is as broad as the truth that natural temptation 
leading to moral disobedience opens the eyes to con- 
sequences which disclose themselves according to an 
unknown law, — consequences totally distinct from the 
gratification sought, whether the gratification sought be 
conceived as sensual or intellectual. 

But a moral act cannot be so trivial in itself as not to 
be magnificent in its relations. Each moral act takes its 
place in an organic series, and thus marks a point of 
view from which the mind may look over seonian reaches 
of life before and after. Ages of the divine providence 
presiding over human destiny in favor of reasonable and 
loyal living, are continually imparting their gracious 
movement to the mind of well-instructed childhood in 
its earliest moral actions. The physical law which 
makes something seem desirable, but does not prescribe 
the season and measure in which it may be safely en- 
joyed, is ever under the premonitions and reproofs of 
benevolent wisdom, seeking to adjust ignorance and in- 
experience to the laws of life, and appealing to faith and 
obedience against danger and death. To see tempting 

1 Gen. iii. 6, 7. 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 119 

fruit and be forbidden to touch it is the characteristic 
trial of well-protected childhood. That the child may 
not know evil, nor incur death, is the characteristic mo- 
tive of parental restraints. "Lest ye die," "that thy 
days may be long," — here is the appeal for docility and 
subjection; but to suffer for disobedience, not to live out 
all one's days, and finally to die, yet withal to say, 
" Good is the word of the Lord," — this is a triumph of 
faith and a mark of righteousness. 

There is laid down for us, in our mental and moral 
constitution, a law of correlative proportions, of maxima 
and minima, to regulate our judgments. For example, 
the lowest degree of knowledge and experience in any 
human being goes with the highest degree of necessary 
dependence upon outward support and control. Again, 
the highest degree of necessary dependence upon out- 
ward support and control is the lowest degree of moral 
responsibility. Again, the lowest degree of moral re- 
sponsibility, grounded upon knowledge and experience, 
implies the highest degree of natural liability that 
grave physical evils may ensue upon immature acts 
of disobedience. The same law is applicable to two 
parties in their relations with each other: the greatest 
weakness of the child not only implies the greatest de- 
pendence upon its guardians, but tolerates the least 
neglect or exaction on their part; while the smallest 
spiritual capacity in the erring -creature furnishes the 
largest excuse for his errors in the estimation of his 
judge. In short, as is the actor, so is the act in its 
moral relations; while in the order of physical conse- 
quences judgment is meted out to acts by physical law, 
with no definite adjustment to their moral quality. 

What man was in his first estate, we know in part 



120 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

from the law on which his bodily life was conditioned, 
and under which it passed away. The charter of a life 
to be nourished on the products of the earth is not with- 
out its limiting clause. Things allowed to be eaten im- 
ply things forbidden to be eaten ; and the Hebrew idiom, 
" to eat thou shalt eat," or " eating thou shalt eat," has 
no more distinct reference to the common necessity of 
life than " to die thou shalt die," or " dying thou shalt 
die," has to the sure though possibly slow progress of 
death as a consequence of eating forbidden things. No 
sharp note of martial law or military execution here, 
but only the premonition of dying in the process of 
natural causation. 

Further, we know in part what man was in the begin- 
ning from the fact that, while the preservation of his 
physical life demanded care first in the order of time, it 
was apparent at no very distant day that his chief dan- 
ger was moral ; that his chief woe was not natural death, 
but the violation of spiritual loyalty ; and that the re- 
actions of a mortal destiny were fitted to quicken at- 
tention to admonitions ministered from above, through 
reason and conscience, for the right conduct of life. 
Accordingly the command which man first disobeyed 
made its appeal expressly to the fear of physical harm, 
not to the dread of moral apostasy, — the finest indica- 
tion of how spiritual training waits upon and appropri- 
ates the discipline of outward things. 

As man's justification cannot prosper by covering his 
original infirmity or transgression, so neither can it pros- 
per by any exaggeration of either. It is precisely at the 
point where physical law touches moral discipline in the 
history of the first transgression that our knowledge ut- 
terly fails; and at this point, also, men have always 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 121 

summoned poetry and speculation to their aid. The 
command laid upon our first parents as a simple epi- 
tome of physical law, a parable of life and death as 
pertaining to the bodily organization, we can well under- 
stand. The resources of life had so thoroughly devel- 
oped their relation to the experience of death before the 
book of Genesis was written, that the law of nature, 
under which man must originally have received life from 
the Creator, could be set forth, certainly not with scien- 
tific exactness, but in a manner true to common sense 
and religious imagination. What we need to know, 
however, in order to appreciate, after the manner even 
of our poor judgments, the moral quality of "eating 
the forbidden fruit," is what only the Omniscient can 
know, namely. What did the first pair know ? What 
sense had they of natural law and spiritual obligation? 
What were their thoughts of their Creator ? What light 
had they upon their duty and destiny as keeping the 
first gateway through which their descendants would 
enter into life? When we weigh such questions as 
these, and think how slenderly we are furnished for 
judging even ourselves, is it strange if, on the one 
hand, we run into wild and extravagant guesses ; or, 
on the other hand, conclude at length that our most 
impressive lesson is derived from the silence of our best 
Teacher ? 

Was Adam formed out of the dust of the ground and 
inspired with the breath of life to be presently taught 
that not only his own loyalty, but the spiritual life of 
all his posterity, was at stake on his obedience in one 
particular of duty ? Was his religious sense awakened, 
and was he made to own his allegiance as a freely con- 
senting party to the sovereign determination which 



122 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

placed him under such a responsibility ? Was he taught, 
with more than the Sinaitic majesty and terror, that 
dying was not merely returning to the ground whence 
he was taken, but a spiritual experience of rebelhon and 
coercion, relentless, persistent, unending ? No such ele- 
ments are found in the Scripture testimony. The sacred 
writer does not seem to "palter with us in a double 
sense " about dying ; nor does he bring life and immor- 
tality to light for the purpose of extending the signifi- 
cance and perpetuating the reign of death. 

But such elements have entered into structures of 
thought that men have built on the Scripture founda- 
tion ; and, there are theories of human nature that would 
in justice require such a character of divine teaching and 
procedure : notably the Augustinian dualism, which has 
so deeply colored religious thinking in later times, even 
to our day. The consequence is that our minds cannot 
take the story of Adam and Eve in its simphcity and 
sincerity, without asking if the vital tissue of fact can 
by possibility be made to assimilate the ordinary mysti- 
cal interpretation of its poetic symbols. That man was 
made in the image of God, the symbolical serpent, the 
symbolical trees, the cherubim and the flaming sword, — 
all these elements combine in a significant penumbra to 
the verifiable elements of reality, on the simple condition 
of not being so interpreted as to destroy the reality. On 
the other hand, the constitution and calling of mankind, 
as known in consciousness and experience, cannot rea- 
sonably be contradicted by the figures of speech in which 
any part of human history is set forth. 

What, then, had the Creator for the first human pair 
to do ? For what calling in life were they well consti- 
tuted and very good ? To dress the garden or to till the 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 123 

ground, to know and to produce the means of life and 
to guard against life's dangers, to become the parents of 
children to be educated, as they themselves were to 
be educated, under the spiritual guardianship of their 
Creator : here is a calHng for which man was originally 
gifted, for which he has always been gifted in some de- 
gree. For ''the gifts and calling of God are without 
repentance." ^ Also, to learn what is genuine law and 
to act accordingly, to receive with joy the tokens of good, 
to respond with a dutiful faith to conscientious convic- 
tions of the divine teaching, though the teaching should 
point out errors and reprove sins: here is a calling of 
man as constituted for spiritual development under the 
influences of the creative Spirit. There has been no re- 
pentance of this calling. It survives, having reached its 
fulness in the man Christ Jesus. 

But this calling contemplates "knowledge, righteous- 
ness, and holiness " as the fruit of experience and the 
attainment of life, — not as the original endowment of 
nature. What of that hypothetical calling which con- 
strues "knowledge, righteousness, and holiness" as the 
possession of undeveloped manhood, the spiritual image 
of God to be lost before the actual moral development 
of the race, as we know it, was to begin ? Was Adam 
the first called to exhibit the sinlessness, the virtue, the 
victorious efficiency, of the last Adam, — to save his own 
soul and the souls of his unborn generations, — by not eat- 
ing the forbidden fruit ? Then it was a calling for which 
the first man was ill fitted, as was shown by his failure ; 
a calling to be speedily repented of ; a calhng in which 
the magnificent imbecility of the first man is conceived 
as atoned for at the immeasurable cost of the final man, 

1 Eom. xi. 29. 



124 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

while the infinite disaster is conceived as to be repaired 
only in part. 

But no. By the law of being, one's calling is in one's 
gifts. The calling for which a man has no adequate gifts 
is the callincr wherewith he is not called. Either Adam 
could have had no such calling as has been supposed, or 
his gifts must have comported with the calling. But if 
the calhng was repented of and taken away, then the 
gifts must logically have been first repented of and taken 
away: in other words, Adam of the mystical image of 
God, "in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness," is 
undone before his eating of the forbidden fruit, or his 
eating would have been morally impossible. 

Yet to make and straight unmake is as impossible 
with God as "to say and straight unsay." Therefore 
Adam was not undone. His gifts and calling remained, 
and he transmitted the same to his children. 

But if we can believe that a divine economy trans- 
cending our knowledge might announce the seemingly 
impossible to be true ; yet, in the sphere of our natural 
and necessary knowledge, the demonstrably untrue be- 
comes, in its turn, impossible as an element of divine 
teaching. The Author of nature cannot contradict the 
truth of nature. Therefore the Scripture testimony 
about the first man and his calling in the world must 
be interpreted with due regard to the well-known ele- 
ments and tendencies of human nature considered by 
themselves. 

Assume the mystical calling, — the calling that trans- 
cends our knowledge and experience. Suppose an intel- 
lectual and moral endowment of the first man equal 
to a unique and incomprehensible responsibility. Forti- 
fied with " knowledge, righteousness, and holiness," he is 



PRIMITIVE RESPONSIBILITY. 125 

required to do homage for himself and his posterity in 
one small matter of formal obedience, that concerns his 
physical welfare. Head of his race, his obedience is not 
merely in form, but much more in the homage and 
fealty he is asked to signify and seal. If he rebels, he 
gains no earthly advantage, but the reverse ; while faith, 
hope, and love, the very elements of spiritual Hfe, are 
definitively abjured. Will he, or will he not, be the loyal 
vassal of God for the physical and moral dominion of 
the world ? Ask such a question about the Christ, the 
man of prophetic promise, the real image of the invisi- 
ble Divinity ; and let his temptation answer it. What 
is to be thought of millions of human beings who do 
not call themselves Christians, and yet habitually resist 
greater outward seductions, with no very exalted spirit- 
ual motives, and without feeling themselves in a critical 
position ? Approximate the primitive man to the char- 
acter of the spiritual man even in a moderate degree, — 
lift him to the range of ordinary Christian virtue, — and 
the story of the fall becomes at once incredible. It 
exhibits the mythical reason and the mythical unreason : 
it becomes a myth. The man of high intelligence and 
holy character, the spiritual image of God not in germ 
but in mature consciousness, does not fall into trivial 
acts of insubordination against infinite motives of duty 
and prudence. 

Or, if it be conceived as within the possibility of per- 
sonal determination that the creature of "knowledge, 
righteousness, and holiness " should do some distinctly 
forbidden thing with the deliberate and intelligent 
purpose of initiating a struggle with the law of the 
universe for his own independence; in other words, 
if a rebel is conceived as having wholly denied his 



126 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

original character and done the morally impossible 
thing, — he "falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." 
As ignorance and unconsciousness account for incidental 
errors, so they are incompatible with desperate trans- 
gressions. That sin which has no palliation of ignorance 
or unconsciousness is the sin which has no sequel of 
repentance and forgiveness. The sin which carries in it 
the potency of moral reprobation to a race is the sin 
which admits no benediction of fruitfulness, no commis- 
sion to people and organize a world, no seed of promise, 
no hope of redemption. " For it is impossible for those 
who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heav- 
enly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers 
of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to re- 
new them again unto repentance." ^ But though he 
thus wrote, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
entertained, he assures us, a very different persuasion as 
to their character and prospects ; and we are entitled 
to entertain a very different persuasion as to mankind, 
especially mankind in its earliest experience. 

1 Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. 



CHAPTEE III. 

ORIGINAL MAN AND HISTORIC MAN. 

WHEN" we have tried in vain to accept a transcen- 
dental hypothesis as accounting for a given order 
of facts in the Bible, we come back to nature, and are con- 
tent to inquire how far a simple nucleus of well-known 
reality will harmonize the facts in question, and sustain 
the scriptural ideals of life and history. 

To the author of Genesis, God only is great. All 
being, law, and discipline are from him. Man, though 
constituted to be chief of the visible works of God, is a 
very humble image of his Maker. No occasion is found 
to exalt him before his disobedience or to disparage him 
afterwards. He is introduced to us in terms of touching 
simplicity and candor. " A living soul," he is not sharply 
distinguished to himself from other creatures who also 
have " a soul of life," till by observation and comparison 
his pre-eminence is made to appear. Having known and 
named the lower species, he becomes aware that help 
and companionship suited to him must be found in his 
own species. Still, the infancy of all creatures is con- 
ceived as the absence of those antagonistic dispositions 
that are developed in the struggle of life ; for to all, the 
vegetable products of the earth are given for food.^ And 
when, on the presentation of Eve, Adam was awakened 

1 Gen. i. 29, 30. 



128 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

to apprehend the physical nature, that approximated him 
to other animals, as the enshrinement of a social and 
spiritual capacity in which he was unique, "naked and 
not ashamed " ^ comes in as the mark of undeveloped 
nature not less than of undeveloped art. 

Did, then, the clear knowledge of God antedate the 
acquaintance with God's creatures ? This is impossible 
by the testimony ; for not only is the distinction between 
man and beast faint, even after study and comparison, — 
the distinction between the serpent's temptation and the 
command of the Lord God is fainter still ; and, what in- 
dicates the deepest ignorance, it is the suggestion of the 
beast which is preferred. At least, on the part of the 
woman the decision was in favor of the serpent; on 
the part of the man, it was in favor of the woman ; and 
on the part of both, it was in favor of the fruit, — against 
the authority of God. As between the natural and the 
spiritual in human development, which is first and which 
afterwards, in our day ? "What was the commandment 
given ? Did it regulate worship, or define social and civil 
obligations ? Did it touch the standard of the Decalogue ? 
]Sro. The commandment did not unavailingly anticipate 
the progress of mankind. It was intended to aid that 
progress, touching the moral sensibility in due time. 

We have brought before us in Eden, not the man of 
" knowledge, righteousness, and holiness," but the human 
creature enfolding the germ of spiritual life : native 
instincts and appetites to be directed from above, and a 
mind for prophetic and practical teaching, that appeals 
to faith. Exactly the being to fall a victim for a time 
to tempting fruit and subtle self-suggestion. Just the 
man, moreover, to hear by and by the reproving voice of 

1 Gen. ii. 18-25. 



ORIGINAL MAN AND HISTORIC MAN. 129 

God, to be corrected, to learn faith, hope, duty. Such a 
man can fulfil a natural calling, and come at length to 
his spiritual heritage in accordance with his personal 
improvement of the Father's gifts. 

And what was the sequel of his sin ? The great 
practical problem of justification at once burdened his 
awakened conscience. How to be righteous, how not to 
disobey God, the inquiry of all ages, to which all revela- 
tion is addressed, suddenly emerged in its mysterious 
infinitude, as it emerges sooner or later in every personal 
experience. 

But the first sign of something wrong is a changed 
action of man's mind. Having tried the experiment of 
judging for himself, he has become naturally sensitive 
and fearful at finding how poorly he is fitted to take his 
welfare into his own keeping. And since he has dis- 
obeyed the voice that was seeking to guide him, he is 
afraid of that voice, as well as afraid of himself. He 
has been rash, broken faith, and awakened a conscientious 
self-reproach. Still, what is done cannot be undone. And 
what is done ? Something certainly quite different from 
the childish anticipation of the doers, — something to be 
justly appreciated only under the divine teaching. Hence 
God is represented as putting the question, in pursuance 
of his teaching. These children must learn how fatal is 
that self-assertion in which a man affects to be as a god ; 
and that real godlikeness can only come with the spirit 
of dutiful submission, whose language is : " I am a 
stranger in the earth ; hide not thy commandments from 
me." For already God had not hidden his command- 
ment, but man had failed to keep it. Man had shown 
the tottering step that deviates to the right hand and the 
left from the straight line of progress, and still moves 

9 



130 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

on. Man stumbled and fell. But was it that man should 
fall forever ; or, rather, through the first fall did there 
not come to the first pair and to their children a disci- 
pline of righteousness and redemption ? 

Mark the sudden appearance and painful prominence 
of the moral man as distinguished from the physical 
man, after the fall. It is as if the moral man had been 
prematurely brought into the world by his own act; 
but having been once born to responsibility by the rash 
assumption of liberty, there is nothing for it but to give 
him a training appropriate to the high prerogative of 
freedom. The child's unfaithfulness is not to make the 
faith of the Father of none effect. Man is not abandoned 
to sensual suggestion and self-will ; but in the adminis- 
tration of physical and moral law God comes to his aid. 
The command was to save man from physical harm ; but, 
the command transgressed, all physical consequences are 
summoned to serve the end of man's moral correction and 
renovation. Every malediction is for man's sake ; that 
the free spirit may be taught to distinguish and assert 
its true character by even the pain and decay of the 
lower nature. 

Notice the gradation of inquiry on the part of God, 
with the corresponding gradation in the judgments pro- 
nounced. The investigation begins with the man, passes 
on to the woman, and ends with finding the source of 
temptation in the beast. Having thus passed downward 
from the highest to the lowest in its inquiry, the divine 
judgment passes upward from the lowest to the highest, 
— from the seducing serpent to the beguiled woman, that 
it may end with the more faultily consenting man. At 
the turning-point, where inquiry changes to judgment, 
the eternal discrimination is made between the serpent 



ORIGINAL MAN AND HISTORIC MAN. 131 

instinct and the moral law. ISTo question is asked of the 
serpent. The serpent is judged as a beast, not as a moral 
agent. The malediction upon the serpent is the male- 
diction appropriate to the most stealthy and venomous 
of beastly natures. It is the curse of enmity, deadly 
and enduring, between the animal seduction and the 
deceived humanity, between the serpent's seed and the 
woman's seed ; the curse of bad pre-eminence among all 
cattle as the type of cunning and treacherous solicita- 
tion ; the curse of utter destruction in the consummation 
of man's victory over the powers of temptation. Tor 
the conflict prophetically portrayed is not a doubtful 
one. The beast may injure, but is not to destroy the 
man ; the man is to destroy the beast. 

After this assurance of hope addressed to man's faith, 
comes the practical discipline for its fulfilment. It is a 
discipline of organic law pervading all the functions of 
life. Nothing here of "knowledge, righteousness, and 
holiness," as consciously repudiated by the sinning pair. 
They had confessed feebly and timidly, but upon the 
whole not disingenuously. They are not reproved for 
uncandid evasion or disloyal intention, but faithfully 
instructed and paternally chastened as the beloved of 
God. They had played with a delusive fancy for divine 
knowledge. They must learn how serious a teacher 
divine Wisdom really is ; how careful of the spiritual 
law; how disenchanting and consuming to the desire 
of the flesh. ISTo longer mere animal harmony, no more 
the living soul without the ruling spirit ; but henceforth 
struggle with nature — pains, toils, conflicts, decay, dis- 
solution — for the sake of the spirit now awakened, how- 
ever abruptly, to the recognition of itself. 

There is not a word to tell us that our first parents 



132 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

committed any error foreign to the necessary liabilities 
of our experience in the world ; not a word to tell us 
that the necessary liability of mankind to evil in con- 
nection with the earthly trial was fatally enhanced by 
the first transgression. It is not said that the gifts and 
calling of mankind underwent any revision to mankind's 
immense disadvantage. On the contrary, it is simply 
shown that the very inception of human history devel- 
oped the identical tendencies that have belonged to it 
ever since. The revelation of Jesus Christ and the era 
of the regeneration pay the highest honor to physical 
tendency as well as to legal training in the development 
of our race, by admitting their primordial necessity and 
pointing out the limit of their claims. ISTo animal nature, 
then no breed of men. No spiritual birth, then no Son 
of God. 

First, that which is natural, — the man of the garden 
and of the living creatures ; afterward, that which is 
spiritual, — the man of the divine Word and of the world 
discipline. First, the man of predominant physical mo- 
tive, disobeying commands and not knowing what he 
does; afterward, the man of open eyes, salutary fears, 
and second thought. First, the man under special re- 
straints for his physical good; afterward, the man 
enduring physical inflictions for his spiritual good. 
First, the man of greatest self-confidence and least faith ; 
afterward, the man of greatest faith and least self-con- 
fidence. First, the man who is " of the earth, earthy ; " 
afterward, the man who is "the Lord from heaven." 
The antithesis implies the progress from the first char- 
acter to the last, and, of course, the contradictory moral 
phenomena resulting from the temporary struggle for 
ascendency between the two. 



ORIGINAL MAN AND HISTORIC MAN. 133 

We are to consider, also, that to an undeveloped and 
uninformed nature confirmed unrighteousness is as im- 
possible as confirmed righteousness. Infancy is not 
exposed to great spiritual dangers. The mistake of an 
initial trial cannot be a final crisis of character. No 
moral catastrophe is to be looked for in the cradle. 
But the discipline of life, guarding against physical dan- 
ger, takes, of necessity, a moral risk. It is not enough 
that forbidden fruit should be kept out of sight. The 
natural appetites must be brought under control of a 
free spiritual loyalty. But spiritual loyalty is of faith, 
something quite distinct from physical tendency or grav- 
itation. " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the 
word of God." And since man's life is '"' not by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God," shall not faith come, and come again, 
by hearing, and hearing as often by the word of God, 
until the prophetic soul shall take its proper attitude 
of attention and obedience, saying, ''Speak, Lord, for 
thy servant heareth " ? 

The testimony of Irenseus is of interest in this con- 
nection as showing what understanding of the Scriptures 
was in the mind of a great defender of the Christian 
faith, whose writings were held by Eusebius to have 
made it clear that he stood in immediate relation with 
the Apostles. Far from allowing that moral character 
was bestowed upon man in his original constitution, 
Irenseus holds that "God made him free from the be- 
ginning," and adds: "But if some had been made by 
nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be 
deserving of praise for being good, for such they were 
created ; nor would the former be reprehensible, for thus 
they were made [originally]. But since all men are of 



134 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

the same nature, able botli to hold fast and to do what 
is good, and, on the other hand, having also the power 
to cast it from them and not to do it, some do justly 
receive praise even among men who are under the con- 
trol of good laws (and much more from God), and ob- 
tain deserved testimony of their choice of good in general 
and of persevering therein ; but the others are blamed, 
and receive a just condemnation because of their rejec- 
tion of what is fair and good." ^ 

Let any one free his mind from the bias of system, 
allowing the Scriptures to speak in their own simple 
way, and see how clearly throughout their whole ex- 
tent the free yet imperfect nature of man is held to 
the guidance of divine truth by faith as the principle of 
obedience. The revelation of God comes down to the 
conditions of our trial, violates no requhement of reason, 
but awakens conscience in order to satisfy law. 

1 Against Heresies, book iv. ch. xxxvii, 1, 2, Ante-iSriceiie Christian 
Library, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE PERFECT FAITH AND THE APPEOVED MAN. 

TT 7E are given to understand, in the later Scriptures, 
^ ^ that no law of outward conduct can be the ra- 
tional measure or final test of righteousness ; in fact, that 
no "law of commandments contained in ordinances"^ 
was ever intended to serve more than a provisional pur- 
pose. The law of commandments is the instrument of 
instruction. Faith in God is the element of righteous- 
ness. The law of commandments is "line upon line 
and precept upon precept," — a thing of imperfect defini- 
tions and partial degrees. Faith is a permanent prin- 
ciple, that proves its quality both by fulfilling and by 
surviving the successive dispensations of law. It is 
good to keep the commandments of God as they are 
made known : now, " Eat not ; " again, " Make no graven 
image ; " again, " Do judgment, and relieve the oppressed." 
But it is better to go beyond these to other and nobler 
requirements of the perfect life by the law of faith. 
Faith is eternal, of the very essence of the perfect life, 
" the substance of things hoped for, the proving of things 
not seen." Faith gains a good report in spite of judg- 
ments adverse to many details of conduct, because it is 
working by love and working with God. Without faith 
1 Eph. ii. 15. 



136 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

it is impossible to please God. With faith it is impossi- 
ble not to please God according to the measure of faith, 
for faith is pleasing to God. A deficiency of faith on 
the part of a being who has had little or no discipline 
for the development of faith is not a deficiency to be 
mortally resented, since faith is born of the divine Word 
and Spirit, nurtured by gracious discipline, consummated 
in holy character. 

As commands and instructions are given that we may 
not go astray in particulars of conduct, so faith is min- 
istered to us that we may be justified from all things 
brought against us ; even those things from which we 
could not be justified by formal law. Literal obedience 
to express directions can conclude nothing in our favor 
beyond those parts of conduct to which the directions 
refer. Faith in the higher authority may qualify actions 
mistaken and regrettable in themselves with the spirit 
of loyalty. Obedience to special commands does not of 
necessity prove a man to be sound in faith. A man 
sound in faith is in that very fact disposed to lawful 
obedience ; and faith is what makes any act of obedience 
whole and acceptable to the authority obeyed. 

Was there any other principle of obedience and life 
for Adam than faith in God ? Law could be known to 
him only in parts, and the parts could be known but 
imperfectly. The whole law cannot be formulated in 
details. Law is the truth of God, to be communicated 
in the Word and received by faith. Faith builds up 
law as it builds up obedience and manhood. Eevelation 
never says, " Obey in this particular, and you shall be 
perfect throughout your generations." But from Alpha 
to Omega we are called upon, as moving in a course of 
free development, to believe in God, to advance by his 



THE APPROVED MAN. 137 

inspiration, and to be perfected. Yea, the principle of 
faith exchides justification on the ground of any particu- 
lars of obedience whatever. To seek righteousness " by 
the deeds of the law " is to lose it. If we find perfection 
in what we have done and are now doing, we give up 
seeking perfection in the better and ever better, which 
is our possibility by the law of faith. '' He that seeketh 
fijideth," by the law of faith. He will go on seeking 
and finding. But he that hath sought and hath found, 
by the law of works, no more seeketh, and findeth no 
more. Hence, though we have gifts and works, no 
matter to what heights and depths of achievement and 
sacrifice, if we have not love ever surviving, and still 
going on in faith and hope to more and better service, 
where is our justification ? I do not say merely our jus- 
tification for the past, but our justification for the present 
and the future. The principle of our justification must 
be a principle of eternal life, or our justification will fall 
into the decay, degradation, and death of transient ages. 
Through all dispensations the principle of our justifica- 
tion is one. Earlier than Moses or Abraham, later than 
Paul or Luther, faith abideth, like Jesus Christ the su- 
preme Example of faith, " the same yesterday and to-day 
and forever." 

Is it possibly because we hear so much of Jesus Christ 
as the Object of faith, that we fail to give him due honor 
as the Example of faith? We are taught to think of 
him as the Mediator of all spiritual benediction and 
grace; yet we frustrate the grace of God, unless we 
learn to think of Him also as the Leader of the war- 
worn hosts of faith, from the foundation of the world. 
It is only by bearing his cross and achieving the perfect 
example of faith and of the righteousness which is by 



138 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

faith, that our Lord passes into his glory and becomes 
Head over all things to his church, Chief of men as born 
to personal sonship in the holy family of God. Only 
by becoming the Son of man, born of a woman, made 
under law, subject to trial, learning obedience by the 
things that he suffered, fulfilling all righteousness, could 
he become known to us as Son of God and Saviour of 
the world. Having come into the house of our physical 
and social bondage, it was for him to lead captivity cap- 
tive, and through the eternal Spirit to vindicate the 
faith in which he offered himself without spot to God, 
that he might open the way of redemption for mankind. 
The prophetic mystery and the Messianic revelation of 
godliness is summed up in these words: ''He who was 
manifested in the flesh, justified m the spirit." ^ Here is 
an antithesis that rules in the earthly life, and is ever- 
more a mystery. "Manifested in the flesh." Why? 
Was it that he might be justified in the flesh ? Was the 
aim to exhibit the pattern and circumstances of the 
best earthly life, as if men were made for a terrestrial 
paradise and nothing better ? Was the divine humanity 
to show an accurate conformity to moral precepts 
according to the limits of the average conscience and the 
requirements of existing institutions and authorities ? 
Nothing of the kind. Manifested but not justified, iu 
the flesh ; manifested that he might be " judged accord- 
ing to men in the flesh," while living " according to God 
in the spirit ; " manifested to declare not only the right- 
eousness, but also the long-suffering of God ; manifested 
to endure the contradiction of sinners, to be bruised and 
put to grief, to make his life an offering for sin, — above 
all, manifested that he might win the faith of those 

1 1 Tim. iii. 16. 



THE APPROVED MAN. 139 

witnesses and messengers, who would bear his testimony 
to all nations, that he might be beheved on in the world, 
having been received up into glory. 

"Justified in the spirit," but not manifested in the 
spirit. " For who among men knoweth the things of a 
man, save the spuit of the man, which is in him ? Even 
so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of 
God." 1 The justification of Jesus Christ in the human 
conscience is of faith. The disciple believes in the right- 
eousness of Jesus. He cannot demonstrate it by stand- 
ards of law applicable to details of conduct. So our 
Lord ever stands before us as greater than the law, as 
justified in his own conscience by demonstration of the 
Spirit, not by demonstration of the Decalogue. It is by 
faith — by an assured persuasion of speaking the truth, 
doing the works, and suffering according to the will of 
the Father — that our Lord is righteous. He fulfilled 
the law and the prophets not by striking coincidences 
of the letter, but by believing in them so as to act out 
their perfect meaning. 

Finally, on what principle or ground shall we con- 
ceive that the Incarnate Son is justified by the Eternal 
Father? Is it on the ground of his having fulfilled 
a certain prescribed work of self-sacrifice, until with 
respect to certain definite limits of that work, he can 
say, " It is finished " ? Is it " after the law of a carnal 
commandment" requiring the Son of God to be put to 
death in the flesh, that the reclamations of divine justice 
might receive a formal or quantitative satisfaction, and 
sinners be saved from receiving the due reward of their 
deeds? Hear the Prophet. "When thou shalt make 
his soul an offering for sin " — what then ? How is the 

1 1 Cor. ii. 11. 



140 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Atonement to be atoned for ? — " He shall see his seed, 
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord 
shall prosper in his hands." Of what avail to bear sins, 
if he could not save his people from their sins ? Of 
what avail to experience the terrors of vindictive law, 
if he could not become the minister of peace, the medi- 
ator and pledge of regeneration ? Is it punishment, and 
not sin, that is the evil and bitter thing ? How does the 
Son himself vindicate the Father's government and his 
own submission ? " Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bring- 
eth forth much fruit." Here is the faith of Jesus in the 
law of the spiritual creation. After his resurrection his 
word is, " Ought not Christ to have suffered, and to 
enter into his glory ? " The testimony of the Gospel is, 
that "for the joy that was set before him he endured 
the cross," — and, '' thus it behooved the Christ to suffer," 
that the majestic purpose of Love might be fulfilled 
through the ages of ages in bringing many sons unto 
glory. 

But take away the shield of faith, wherewith the 
Saviour is able to quench the fiery darts of the adver- 
sary, and what becomes of the sword of the Spirit, — 
the word of God ? What becomes of the armor of 
righteousness on the right hand and on the left, — his 
active obedience ? What becomes of the helmet of sal- 
vation, — his assurance of success ? Nay ; take away 
the persuasion of his resurrection and endless life, of 
the ages to come, of his all-subduing and all-reconciling 
reign, of the kingdom to be delivered up to the Father, 
that God may be all in all, — and is Jesus justified with 
God, or are the ways of God justified to man ? On the 
contrary, we are simply brought to the unique demon- 



THE APPROVED MAN. 141 

stration of a pessimist world : the worst fate to the best 
man. If the Christ crucified be not the Christ risen 
and glorified, then of all men his followers are the most 
miserable — and most miserable are all men. If there 
be no resurrection of the dead, and no revelation of God 
and of the sons of God in an immortal life, then what 
is there to make good the word of promise, on which all 
righteous laws, all prophetic anticipations and benevolent 
sacrifices, have reposed ? But grant that faith is the rec- 
ognition, however feeble, of a divine reality and an eter- 
nal revelation, wherein faith has its own justification and 
guidance, and then faith will sustain and justify the 
human spirit in doing what faith demands. Thus faith, 
working by love, purifying the heart, and overcoming 
the world, becomes the organic law of citizenship and 
service under the government of God. 

On this ground, it is true, faith cannot be confined to 
a critical act, in which, for example, a man takes it for 
granted that a mystical fall has its compensation in a mys- 
tical atonement. Such an act can, in any case, be only 
an incident of faith. Taith abideth, — a permanent prin- 
ciple of action, a vital relation of the finite soul with the 
eternal Spirit, or there is no faith and no justification. 
Faith is not only in itself the spiritual element of right- 
eousness ; it makes for righteousness also in the way of 
'' good works, which God hath before ordained that we 
should walk in them." 

Faith, in fine, determines its own antithesis, — unbe- 
lief. Unbelief expresses the evil that is in the world in 
its unity. Men, alike unknowing and unbelieving with 
respect to God and the ages of his revelation, are thrown 
back upon partial aspects of things. They find develop- 
ment and dissolution, immanent energy coming out in 



*' He that believeth not hath been judged already, because he 

hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and 

men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were 

evil." 

Gospel of St. John, iii. 18, 19. 

" The highest enhancement of sin, the blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost, is conditioned by the highest revelation of God ; only 
through Christ and the eflB.ciency of the Holy Ghost proceeding 
from Him has it become possible." 

De. Julius Mullee: Christian Doctrine of Sin, vol. ii. p. 4S0. 

*' DASS dem menschen nichts vollkommnes wird, 
Empfind' ich nun. Du gabst zu dieser wonne, 
Die mich den gottern nah' und naher bringt, 
Llir den geiahrten, den ich schon nicht mehr 
Entbehren kann, wenn er gleich, kalt und frech, 
Mich vor mii^ selbst erniedrigt, und zu nichts, 
Mit einem worthauch, deine gaben wandelt." 

Goethe : Faust. 



PAET FOURTH. 

THE MANIFESTATION OF EVIL. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF SPECULATIONS ON OEIGINAL SIN. 

IN" the preceding study we found faith to be the prin- 
ciple not only of spiritual rectitude, but of spiritual 
progress; since righteousness is revealed in nature and 
represented in Scripture not as practical conformity with 
outward regulations, but as the development of personal 
life according to the revelation of God. 

The Council of Trent was true to the principle of 
growth, if not to the economy of reformation, in what 
it declared concerning the increase of justification : " So, 
therefore, those justified, and made God's friends and ser- 
vants, going from strength to strength, are renewed, as 
saith the Apostle, ' day by day ; ' that is, by mortifying 
the members of their flesh and presenting them as in- 
struments of justice unto sanctification, by observing 
the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co- 
operating with good works, they grow in that righteous- 
ness received through the grace of Christ, and are justified 
more and more. Holy Church seeks this increase of 
righteousness when she prays, ' Grant us, Lord, an in- 
crease of faith, hope, and charity.' " ^ 

^ Decretum de Justificatione, caput x. 
10 



146 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Tliis progress in faith and righteousness, depending 
upon the revelation of God, is always shaded in human 
history by manifestations of unbelief and unrighteous- 
ness, that af&rm the animal appetites, childish judg- 
ments, and selfish wills of men. As there is the struggle 
of physical life, so above and beyond this there is the 
fight of faith, the conflict for spiritual enlargement, the 
effort to give reason and the will of God their proper 
persuasiveness and just ascendency in the dealings of 
men. 

The advancing spiritual conviction has ever reflected 
with severe reproach upon our immature and complex 
nature for its proclivity to immediate enjoyment in pref- 
erence to prospective improvement, and its obstinate ad- 
hesion to low habits in spite of noble ideals or moving 
examples that appeal for efforts and sacrifices in pursu- 
ance of the greatest good for all creatures. 

"What has been dogmatically laid down upon this 
subject in the creeds of Christendom need not be exhib- 
ited here. But in the reasonincr of eminent thinkers 
we sometimes find a whole aspect of history in a few 
words, and so have an effective introduction to what we 
desire to examine for ourselves. The Duke of Argyle, 
through a series of elaborate studies in the " Contempo- 
rary Eeview," finds at length in man the solitary ex- 
ception to "the Unity of Nature."^ In the number for 
February, 1881, he says: "That which is really excep- 
tional, and indeed absolutely singular, in man is the 
persistent tendency of his development to take a wrong 
direction." Such a tendency, according to him, "can- 
not be reconciled with the ordinary course of nature or 

1 See also "The Unity of Nature," G. P. Putnam's Sons, pp. 355, 
367, 372, 373, 544. 



ORIGINAL SIN. 147 

with the general law under which all other creatures 
fulfil the conditions of their being;" and this by rea- 
son of the general fact, "first, that man is prone to 
set up and to invent standards of obligation which are 
low, false, mischievous, and even ruinous ; and, secondly, 
that when he has become possessed of standards of 
obligation which are high and true and beneficent, he is 
prone first to fall short in the observance of them, and 
next to suffer them, through various processes of decay, to 
be obscured and lost." The corruption of religion, as well 
as the corruption of morals, becomes intelligible, in his 
view, "on the supposition of wilful disobedience with 
all its tendencies and consequences having become 'in- 
herited and organized in the race.' " 

Cardinal Newman develops the same argument with 
intenser feeling.^ " To consider the world in its length 
and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, 
their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienations, their 
conflicts ; and then their ways, habits, governments, 
forms of worship ; their enterprises, their aimless courses, 
their random achievements and acquirements, the im- 
potent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens, so 
faint and broken, of a superintending design, the blind 
evolution of what turn out to be powers or truths, the 
progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not 
towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, 
his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain 
hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the 
defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental 
anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervad- 
ing idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary, hopeless irre- 
ligion, that condition of the whole race so fearfully yet 

1 Apologia pro Yita sua, pp. 241, 242. 



148 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

exactly described in the Apostle's words, 'having no 
hope and without God in the world/ — all this is a 
vision to dizzy and appall, and inflicts upon the mind 
the sense of a profound mystery which is absolutely 
beyond human solution. What shall be said to this 
heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact ? I can only 
answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living 
society of men is in a true sense discarded from his 
presence." 

But since there is a Creator, Cardinal Newman argues 
that " the human race is implicated in some terrible 
aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes 
of its Creator." " This," he insists, "is a fact, — a fact as 
true as the fact of its existence; and thus," he continues, 
"the doctrine of what is theologically called 'original 
sin '■ becomes to me almost as certain as that the world 
exists, and as the existence of God." 

What is matter of inference in these quotations is 
introduced simply for the emphasis it gives to what 
is matter of induction. To highly developed and in- 
structed intellects, to spirits trained in all the doctrine 
and discipline of religion, and characters ripened to 
pious susceptibility and devoutness, the facts of our 
mortal history are so fearful, the color of our fate is 
so sombre, that the passing generations, being plainly 
insufhcient for their own burdens or their own duties, 
must needs refer their evils through unknown lines of 
natural descent back to " some terrible aboriginal calam- 
ity," some "wilful disobedience," on account of which 
God discarded man from his presence, and man was left 
as a race to inherit and organize the consequences of his 
transgression. 

As the purpose of the present study is not to resolve 



ORIGINAL SIN. 149 

any mystery, but simply to deal with what is made 
known to us in nature for the clearer understanding of 
what we are taught in Scripture, and as we have 
already considered the beginning of man's history, we 
have now nothing to do with grounding man's present 
aberrations upon an original catastrophe ; nor can we 
properly infer that man is discarded from God's pres- 
ence from an induction of facts about man's sin and 
misery, without due regard to God's revelation for 
reconciling the world unto himself. That man does 
inherit and organize the consequences of his errors is 
true. That God does bear testimony against man's 
errors in the sufferings they entail may be taken as 
equally true. But as man's righteousness is simply his 
persistent progress in knowledge and obedience through 
faith in God's revelation, so man's sin has its develop- 
ment and aggravation through his continued resistance 
to the persuasions of the same revelation. Hence 
man's physical and intellectual error, inherited and 
organized through ages of comparative ignorance, sup- 
ports his appeal to compassion; while man's moral 
inertia, or wilful reluctance to good under increasing 
light from above, opens the question of personal blame- 
worthiness. First and last the spiritual movement of 
humanity refers wilful disobedience and judicial con- 
demnation to the period of final decisions, not to the 
period of initial communications between God and man. 
The sin of ignorance is easily forgiven, however mon- 
strous in its external aspect. The sin against light 
is promptly judged according to its inward quality, 
though it should violate none of the decencies of out- 
ward life. A " terrible aboriginal calamity " (if that be 
not a contradiction in terms), even though it were a 



150 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

" wilful disobedience," so its consequences be " inherited 
and organized in the race," would justly be pleaded by 
all the heirs of such an inheritance as a palliation of 
personal guilt, in just so far as it should constitute 
a native proclivity to evil. We are therefore to take 
nature as we find it, and to study the manifestation 
of evil in the concrete; that is, to study the so-called 
evil of life as related to the good. For it is evil as mark- 
ing the whole course of nature, not as something per- 
fectly definable in itself, that the Bible is persistently 
holding up to our attention. It follows that for us to 
attend to this, much as we may be baffled by the in- 
tricacies of the subject, is the way to throw the light of 
experience upon Scripture, and the light of Scripture 
upon experience. 



CHAPTEE II. 

OF SPIRITUAL LAW OVEEEULmG PHYSICAL TENDENCY. 

T TUMAI^ nature is complex. The animal part of 
•^ -■- man has laws of its own, which are distinct from 
the laws of his spiritual obligation. In itself considered, 
the law of animal nature is very good. It wisely and 
kindly adapts and moves mankind to the fulfilment of a 
physical destiny. Equally certain is it that the animal 
nature indispensable to the fulfilment of our physical 
destiny is itself destined to pass away when its work is 
done. But if a mortal race is employed in the produc- 
tion and education of immortal men, then our physical 
organs, like other material objects, must come under the 
sway of spiritual law so long as there shall be any need 
of them as means and instruments of spiritual service. 

Our bodily development is so vitally related to the 
quality and discipline of our spirits, however, that the 
race can ill afford a feeble physical organization. The 
physical motive has need to be vigorous, lest the strug- 
gle of life should be made uncertain or abortive by pre- 
mature and overpowering spiritual demands. Infant 
saints are not thought of usually as hopeful candidates 
for earthly honors. If the child after the flesh is to die 
at an early day, the human race cannot be much in- 
debted to him ; and as for his own spiritual development 



152 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

on so faint and feeble a trial, what can it be but a 
precocious and puny product ? The teaching of nature 
reduced to a proverb is a law of not too much on either 
hand : " Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thy- 
self overwise ; why shouldst thou destroy thyself ? Be 
not over wicked, neither be thou foolish ; why shouldst 
thou die before thy time ? " ^ The way is narrow. There 
is danger on the side of excessive spuitual exertion, as 
well as on the side of excessive physical indulgence. To 
wrong the lower nature is to wrong the higher also. 
But first in the order of time comes that which is physi- 
cal, — to be handled at short range, to be wisely indulged 
or restrained, not under moral precepts, but according to 
natural law. To foster and develop the energy which 
in its various functions the spiritual man will by and 
by responsibly employ, meanwiiile waiting to salute the 
youthful spirit for the purpose of introducing it gently 
to its appropriate moral lessons, — this is what it means 
to bring men forward in the world. 

But while there is a period to which moral training is 
inappropriate, and nature is its own law, there is still a 
higher nature to which law is to be communicated from 
above, and the word of the Lord comes by and by in 
a peculiar sense. A command authoritative, prophetic, 
divine, — not less so for being famiharly uttered by pa- 
rental ministry, — requires the child to abstain freely 
from some natural pleasure because the indulgence, or 
too much of it, would be injurious. The well-known 
conditions of life, the laws of nature as long experience 
has taught society to apprehend them, become matter 
of moral discipline to the untaught and the unwary. 
What cautious and watchful guardianship about forbid- 
1 Eccl. vii. 16, 17. 



SPIRITUAL LA W AND PHYSICAL TENDENCY, 153 

den fruits ! And how much instruction has to be given 
before the child of nature can be counted upon as having 
grown to such spiritual faith as will insure a moral 
obedience ! Efforts and actions that are perfectly and 
innocently spontaneous, yet contrary to the superior 
judgment, have to be reproved and corrected, as a means 
of awakening the conscientious feeling and confirming 
a conscientious habit. At the first the natural aliena- 
tion of childhood from this kind of training is total. 
Why ? Simply because the child has its law of spon- 
taneous movement in the Ime of physical motives. Is 
this law sin ? Certainly not in the moral sense, though 
it may express the natural inheritance of morbid ten- 
dencies. But when the higher law comes, then comes 
the demand for faith; then comes proof of a practical 
potency of foolishness and impiety bound up in the 
child's constitution. The child seems a creature of mere 
animal desire in opposition to the divine word opening 
the way to new obedience. Infantile rebellion is out- 
spoken and unscrupulous just in proportion as it is igno- 
rant, unapprehensive, and irresponsible. The will of the 
flesh is not informed as to the higher range of man's life, 
until the very teaching that begins to point it out is 
understood and felt as overruling the law of the lower 
nature. When the commandment comes in this sense, 
the natural motives, in proportion as they are thrown into 
practical opposition to the law of faith, begin to take a 
relative character of unbelief and unrighteousness. That 
which was innocent and excellent as the original creation 
of God, and which is still innocent and excellent, so only 
it be kept in just subordination to every spiritual word 
of God, imports evil, and liability to more and more of 
evil, when it is allowed to assert itself as so much mind 



154 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of tile flesh — so much prejudice of animal habit and 
desire — against the higher ruling. That physical ten- 
dency which is not in itself subject to the spiritual law 
of God, neither indeed can be, is to be subjugated by the 
spirit of faith in man. For by faith man is subject to 
the spuitual reign of God, and can become subject to 
the same more and more. Low down in our career we 
are all in innocent unbelief, in the nothingness and 
vanity of our ignorance, by no will of our own. Our 
destiny for good depends upon the commandment that 
shall come, upon the word of truth and grace that shall 
visit all ; albeit why some are so tractable, and others 
so intractable, seemingly, to the heavenly guidance is a 
secret that merges in the mystery of being, while the 
fact revealed in experience is that " all we, like sheep, 
have gone astray." 

But the new commandment demanding faith, — does 
this throw us from the track of obedience to our destruc- 
tion, because it acts as a brake to check and regulate a 
native tendency liable to unconscious and fatal excess ? 
By no means. Eor this very reason the new command- 
ment is good. It comes forth from a perfect law, and 
ministers to a divine order; it is not opposed to the 
physical tendencies as such, but only to their transgres- 
sion of salutary limits. The higher law enters not only 
for its own sake and for the sake of the higher man, but 
because of a dangerous liability to transgression even in 
the lower sphere of physical requirement. The Crea- 
tor declares himself as the Guide of the human soul for 
the sake of the body; and by that means he becomes 
the Saviour of the body for the sake of the soul. He 
points out our natural weakness, appeals to a wholesome 
fear^ solicits faith as the principle of obedience, and hence 



SPIRITUAL LA W AND PHYSICAL TENDENCY. 155 

the condition of all blessings he desires to bestow. All 
the contents and endeavors of our being are continually 
coming to judgment in accordance with the progressive 
demands of the truth as apprehended by faith. It 
matters not what the requirement may be, — does it 
express a claim of supreme law ? Then to believe and 
to obey is good. Unbelief in all conceivable degrees of 
disobedience is relatively evil. Hesitation, reluctance, 
delay, resistance, — all that is not of faith is of evil. 
This antagonism of unbelief and faith holds through all 
gradations of intellectual and moral development, and 
is quite distinct from any judgment as to degrees of per- 
sonal responsibility. Granted that the supreme Wisdom 
is moving men with counsels or commands, — then, as 
certainly as faith and obedience are their only right- 
eousness, so certainly unbelief and disobedience are the 
measure of their unrighteousness. The common aspect of 
evil, in individuals and in society, is the aspect of some- 
thing negative to the best suggestion, to the wisest 
teaching, to the most beneficent example, — something 
negative, in a word, to the divine inspiration. For if a 
little advance in knowledge and experience is enough 
to bring a person into a critical attitude of mind towards 
whatever is behind, so that to excuse is also to accuse 
the more ignorant, how should not that all-searching 
inspiration of God, which ministers instruction in right- 
eousness to the human spirit, cause even the fine gold 
of natural virtue to grow dim by comparison with the 
virtue that excelleth, — to say nothing of those grosser 
exhibitions, wherein animal appetites and lawless pas- 
sions conspire with headstrong self-will against admoni- 
tions of authority and persuasions of conscience ? 

Infancy does not grow to a spontaneous fulfilment 



156 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of the tasks and graces of childhood; nor is the child 
invariably met with a discipline to charm it into per- 
fect action. Youth, maturity, old age, — each period 
has its peculiar tendencies that are distinctly against the 
best thought and hope; though they are as distinctly 
of nature under the existing stress of conditions and 
motives in the lower sphere of life. Always, however, 
there is the law and mastership of hfe calling men 
onward and upward. Prophecies of intellectual, social, 
and spiritual attainments utter themselves in the soul. 
Yet there is ever a preoccupation, some concrete ex- 
pression of unbelief, by reason of which, if it may 
be deemed that some are excusably late in reaching the 
land of promise, it must be confessed that there are 
others who do not for the present appear to enter in at 
all. And who can be sure of having exerted his powers 
to the best practicable effect ? 

As one man's lack of faith in life's promises and possi- 
bilities makes its contribution to a general average of 
failure, which becomes a mode of social existence, so 
the manner of livmg in society becomes a clog, or pro- 
hibition, or bias, to individual progress and influence; 
though the need of reformation may be to prophetic 
souls as a very fire in the bones. The illuminated, the 
elect, through whom the higher calling is brought to the 
knowledge of meaner men, are apt to become jealous 
for the Lord their God, but incommunicative, severe, 
condemnatory, toward their fellow-men. They make 
a virtue of despising the very conditions of virtue. 
That the higher law should respect and vindicate the 
claims of the lower law seems too great a condescension ; 
and so the lower law is disparaged and denounced as 
interfering with the demands of the higher. The earth- 



SPIRITUAL LAW AND PHYSICAL TENDENCY. 157 

ward gravitation is accused of hindering the heavenward 
motion. The man of lofty contemplations, who cannot 
take others upon his flights, conceives their heaviness 
as infinitely more odious to their Maker than burden- 
some to him, and finds it the part of piety to construe 
the universal trial as universal apostasy from the very 
beginning. In this way he thinks to give God glory for 
all aspects of good, while to man he assigns the respon- 
sibility for all aspects of evil. 

But the Creator does not reveal himself as wholly on 
the side of those wlio seem called to take his part. If 
error besets the lower functions of our nature, does it not 
beset the higher also ? Has not man erred as disas- 
trously in the over-assertion of spiritual prerogatives 
as in the over-indulgence of animal tendencies ? Is it 
not the part of the infinite Judge to correct error in all 
and for all? How shall the prophet of improvement 
even in art be ever recognized as such, if he have no 
patience with the cool stare of unbelief or the active 
persecution of vested interests ? What, then, shall the 
prophet of enlightened conscience and of moral law 
expect ? Eelatively to each other it is not the prophet, 
but the world, that is lying in wickedness. But the 
prophet is also of the world, and the world is prophetic 
with the prophet, however it may seem to be against 
him ; while prophet and world, the whole race of men, 
are in that error and faultiness out of which slowly and 
painfully the way is opening toward the world that is 
to come. As this progress in its very nature implies 
the better thoughts and nobler faith that lead the way 
to unseen good, so by a necessary correlation it implies 
the lower habits and short-sighted affections that are 
judged as evil and doomed to pass away. 



158 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

The absolute good is not in creatures. But given the 
absolute good in the Creator as the Object of faith, and 
the absolute evil is impossible in the creation. Evil 
comes out as a mistaken or perverse determination 
of life, — to be corrected by the further discipline of life 
lest it should defeat the consummation of life. This 
is not theory ; it is history, — the divine teachhig in the 
facts of existence. As faith embraces the divine motive 
and guidance in nature, and thus stands for hfe in rela- 
tion to its possible good, better, and best, under the 
inspu-ation of supreme Wisdom and Benevolence; so 
unbelief, indifferent or oppugnant to the light and lead- 
ing from above, because seeking good in obedience 
to animal instincts or personal calculations, stands for 
life in relation to its possible progress in error and the 
natural consequences of error, — the bad, worse, and worst 
of illusion, abortion, and destruction, which are the his- 
toric mark of works not wrought in the spirit of faith 
and obedience. As the way of wisdom is the way of 
peace and pleasantness, no matter with what incidental 
sufferings, so the way of indocility is the way of prohibi- 
tory and punitive discipline, — the hard way, no matter 
with what incidental pleasures or advantages. Unbehef, 
as the error of immature intelligence, is corrected by 
larger experience. No one is allowed to commit himself 
finally to a wrong choice without trial of that servile 
apprenticeship to transgression which opens the eyes to 
the majesty and freedom of law. The " evil, be thou 
my good," of unconscious, inconsiderate, and ignorant 
preference, cannot grow in personal development to the 
" evil, be thou my good," of ultimate spiritual determi- 
nation, except the person travel all the pathway of con- 
tradiction under the lightnings of divine law, which 



SPIRITUAL LAW AND PHYSICAL TENDENCY. 159 

measures the moral distance between an infantile devia- 
tion from the truth of life, when as yet the inspiration 
of Wisdom has hardly indicated its motion in the soul, 
and a deliberate alienation from God after the most per- 
suasive proof of his . goodness has been brought to bear 
upon the spirit. It is in multitudes, as flocks and herds, 
that men try the first stages of the broad way leading 
to destruction; but one by one, as spiritual persons 
admonished and taught of God, are they turned into the 
way of eternal life. 



CHAPTEE III. 

OF PAINS AND PENALTIES AS EELATED TO CONDUCT. 

T^HE sketch just given of unbelief and evil among 
-*- men stands for a condition of things that antedates 
all generations of historic humanity; a condition of 
things, consequently, with respect to which no man 
holds himself to be personally responsible, except for his 
own contribution to the general result. 

The world presses upon every human being different 
objects and aims, which, appealing to different orders of 
motives not of equal authority, demand of every one 
in the exercise of his constitutional freedom to choose 
wisely for himself and for others. In this way we come 
to our type of personal responsibility. Other men, 
who by their conduct have helped to make the world 
what it is of good or bad, must personally answer for 
themselves, as we in our place and order shall answer 
for ourselves ; and when every individual of the human 
race shall bear his full personal responsibility, there is 
much reason to think that speculation about sin will 
be out of date. The good or evil of our history will have 
been personally accounted for, with perfect honor to the 
wisdom and benevolence of the Creator. 

In the mean time we need to study the evil conse- 
quent upon our manifold errors in its relation to the 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 161 

development of individual and social responsibility. 
"VYe have seen that the elements of our trial are brought 
slowly and prudently to our apprehension. Nature 
shields us at first by our very feebleness from the possi- 
bility of precipitate determination to wrong-doing. The 
creative teaching takes advantage of our growing moral 
sense to point out to us that we cannot be made the 
victims of any inherited depravation except by a volun- 
tary surrender of our better selves. As long as the 
apprehension of truth is childishly feeble, and practical 
mistakes are the only way out of intellectual and moral 
limitations, it is clear that there can be no decisive trial 
of faith, no fatal unbelief, no final determination of the 
spiritual career. 

But while faith in all its degrees is an element of 
personal responsibility, unbelief grounded in ignorance 
is of a nature to excuse a certain bondage to practical 
error. Faith and unbelief refer to motives of conduct, 
not to specific and mutually exclusive moral qualities. 
The men of unbelief and the men of faith are only 
relatively distinguished; they are not separate hosts 
under different colors. A man's faith is nothing less 
than his spiritual relation to universal reality on the 
side of knowledge, suggestion, inspiration : it is all that 
makes for personal progress in harmony with divine law. 
A man's unbelief, on the contrary, is his spiritual rela- 
tion to universal reality on the side of ignorance, doubt, 
contradiction : it makes for degradation and failure, 
fi'om mistaken devotion to partial views in opposition 
to universal truth. In the struggle of opposing argu- 
ments, a man passes, it may be, from an action having 
the mark of unbelief to an action having the mark of 
faith by simply modifying his conduct in accordance 

11 



162 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

with new convictions as to the grounds of his responsi- 
bility. He shifts the line, so to speak, between what 
he takes to be true and what he takes to be not true, 
just as one changes the limits of one's horizon by moving 
to a higher point of view. There is no faith without a 
correlated unbelief, no unbelief that does not assert 
itself as a limitation of an existing faith. Faith and 
unbelief, like positive and negative electricity, are devel- 
oped at the same instant and in the same action ; are 
indeed opposite polarities of the same voluntary effort. 
Faith and unbelief, in the normal action of the spirit, 
determine that necessary mental oscillation which is 
the note of progress. The evil unbehef is that general 
distrust which finds oscillation disagreeable because the 
onward movement is held to be undesirable, and the alter- 
native of rest, at whatever risk, is voluntarily preferred. 
The whole development of personal responsibility turns 
upon what a man takes to be true as distinguished from 
what he decides to treat as untrustworthy; while the 
consequences that naturally ensue upon one's determina- 
tions are simply testimonies of the universal Governor 
as to the merits of the belief, or of the denial, that is 
brought into judgment. 

Is it likely, then, that man was ever intended to pass 
from the ignorance and helplessness, which would be 
speedy destruction were it not atoned for by parental 
love, to freedom and security as a prince in the house- 
hold of God, without the excitement and discipline of 
pain, whether physical or spiritual ? Would it be good, 
I do not say for the economy and success of life in 
general, but for the conscious animation and pleasure 
of the hour, — would it be good that no bitter herbs 
should flavor the feast of existence ; that, come what 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 163 

might, there should be no sensible discords to awaken and 
remand us to the concords of being ? Such insensibility 
is the mark of death, — the way of inorganic matter. 

To rational life, on the contrary, in a universe vital 
and infinite, wherein all parfe and syllables of truth are 
precious by reason of their relation to truth as a whole, 
pain is the magisterial expression of Goodness, bidding 
us to pause when we falsely think we ought to go 
farther, or to move on when we falsely think that our 
rest is gained. What is precious must be costly in order 
that we may appreciate it as precious. If man is com- 
pelled to rally his invention, to combine the resources 
of many individuals in the struggle of life against 
animals of superior physical energy and agility, until, 
at no trifling expense, he becomes what Aristotle defined 
him, — "a political animal," — will he win his proper 
degree in the spiritual kingdom of God without danger, 
by mere social assent or listless submission ? To know 
in order to believe, to believe and make trial in order 
to know, — is this, or ought it to be, an easy and painless 
endeavor ? To say so would be to deny to our spiritual 
calling the character of an exciting and honorable 
career. 

Experience teaches us that faith has its faults and 
misdoings, which originate in the very action of faith as 
related to its limitations. Faith, therefore, is under 
correction to the wisdom and love of the Father as 
manifested in the government of things ; and the very 
leaders of faith, the heroic exemplars of virtue, submit 
joyfully to a discipline of pains and penalties comport- 
ing with the majesty of the divine service contrasted 
with the poor results of the best human effort. The 
cost of wisdom must be paid, whether in the chastise- 



164 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ments of sloth or in the pains of effort ; and even the 
well-authenticated dictates of knowledge, " thou shalt " 
and " thou shalt not," do not become a firm persuasion 
in the minds of the ignorant without more or less of 
bitter experience in the hard"* way of transgression. 

It is not merely that the real faith has at times to 
substantiate its claims against an unbelief that inherits 
the effects, wears the regalia, and rules in the name of 
an elder faith; but the apostles of truth are brought 
by varied experiences of suffering out of dangers incident 
to their own interior progress in the experience which 
is their peculiar glory. Faith does not enable a man 
to demonstrate the ultimate patterns of duty ; it inspires 
him to divine and to enter upon the immediate efforts 
of duty. But faith, as it implies limitation of intelli- 
gence, so it does not reach the safe standard of divina- 
tion, except as it shares in the divine motive of love. 
Too often the intellectual assurance and practical zeal 
of faith are in the inverse ratio, both of instruction 
and of charity; while, on the other hand, at whatever 
height of attainment a man presumes to think that he 
has nothing further to gain, in that very fact he denies 
faith, and according to that denial the infinite truth is 
not in him. To be self-satisfied in view of what we 
know, is so far to be unready for the new word of faith. 
To run credulously after every novel teaching, is to indi- 
cate no trustworthy appreciation of the truth already 
given us in charge. 

The Ulusiveness of finite knowledge, the indetermi- 
nateness as to practical form of relative duties, the lia- 
bility of all good qualities in human nature to run into 
bad qualities by unconscious transgression of their proper 
limits, — how would not this constitute a relative mani- 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 165 

festation of evil and a necessity of corrective discipline 
even in the experience of the elect of the race, no matter 
how much time might be allowed for attaining and 
manifesting the best type of character possible to each 
individual? But when we consider that the elect are 
chosen in order that others may be called ; that no char- 
acter reaches its ideal glory here, for the reason that 
spiritual development on this side immortality is arrested 
by physical decay ; that the heavenly vision of the seer 
is simply his commission to struggle with the earthly 
vision of the multitude, and learn by trial how great 
things he must suffer in the name of the truth, which 
other men have as much need to appreciate as he has : 
when we weigh all this, I say, are we not prepared for a 
manifestation of evil on a scale commensurate with the 
development of good, — evil of a force and color in no 
faint contrast with good ? For, as there is no power, 
motive, or passion in the race which has not its counter- 
part in every well-constituted individual of the race, so 
there is no array of embattled hosts that is not deter- 
mined by personal tendencies. If the heavenly vision 
of faith is liable to sin by over-exaltation against its 
commission of service, and to suffer accordingly, cer- 
tainly there is danger that the earthly confidence and the 
earthly struggle may sin by sensual indifference against 
the heavenly gift, and suffer accordingly. 

Indeed, so important is suffering in the discipline and 
struggle of life, that men are continually inflicting it 
upon themselves and upon those they love, as well as 
upon others whom they dislike or desire to overcome. 
In this way they accumulate figures in which they not 
only represent, but misrepresent, the divine chastise- 
ments. The inflictions that come unbidden of personal 



166 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

wills and by the secret dispensation of God in nature, 
compared with the pains and penalties referrible to posi- 
tive enactments and settled administrations of men, are 
as the common law of a remote imperial government 
compared with the petty tyranny of an officious and 
mercenary police. The man who proposes to govern 
himself according to a high aim makes light of pains. 
It is his delight to " scorn delights." He toils for the 
present, that he may live more strenuously laborious 
days in the future. He keeps his body under severe 
training and brings it into subjection. St. Francis called 
his body " the ass," and confessed at last that he had 
treated the creature harshly. Those who construe them- 
selves, not as man and beast, but as two men — the 
spiritual man and the carnal man -—in like manner 
lord it over the subject nature ; and, while taking moral 
responsibility and blame as appropriate to the master, 
accuse the servant of fatuous dereliction in not helping 
them to do the things that they desire to do. 

Meanwhile the ascetic virtue has fallen as far short 
of perfect spiritual manhood as of doing full justice to 
physical demands. Childhood cannot seize maturity 
by violence, and there is a force by which the kingdom 
of heaven is not taken. Conscientious faith has juris- 
diction, but not supreme jurisdiction. The most sensi- 
tively conscientious man, feeling how much error abounds 
in his best endeavors, how it needs repression and correc- 
tion in order that grace may much more abound in the 
way of free forgiveness and new obedience, will be led 
to appeal from his conscience to his Judge, and to rejoice 
most of all that the distinction of right and wrong is too 
vital and sacred to have its claims finally adjudicated, 
even as respects the most common details of conduct, by 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 167 

any but the highest Authority. And if the good man 
cannot do justice to himself, still less can he estimate 
justly, except in a very general sense, the man who 
exhibits according to his natural gifts, his period of life, 
or the society by which he is moulded, a manner of liv- 
ing very different from his own. Only of this we are 
sure, — that the pre-eminently good man, finding evil in 
himself and in those like himself, will find evil abound- 
ing much more in the world. He will deem himself the 
organ of the divine truth, commissioned by the indwell- 
ing Spirit of God to "convince the world of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment." 

But the world, — the world that stands for vast so- 
cieties knowing little of righteousness and sin because 
believing little in God and truth, the world that being 
already unchristian only awaits the revelation of the 
Christ to find itself antichristian in its habits and ten- 
dencies, the world that dismisses souls of men by death 
that new bodies of men may have a chance in life, — is 
it a world to take easily, and without any violent reaction, 
a spiritual discipline, wherein every untrained nature is 
" a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke " ? 

If, again, the physical foundations of society are given 
to decay, what is to become of the best political and 
religious structures erected upon them ? Must they not 
be evermore shaken, transformed, and superseded in the 
progress of new operations ? How is the Master-builder 
conducting his work here ? This present world at any 
moment contains a vast accumulation of things vener- 
able for age, that stand in the way of new outlines and 
inspirations in which required improvements are set 
forth. It is not only the world of the usurping beast, 
but the world of the usurping prince, prophet, or priest. 



168 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

as well ; a world not to accept easily and peacefully the 
reforming legislation of the true King. Usurpations 
fortified by habit are likely not to be thought of as 
usurpations, and the man who simply bears testimony 
to the truth is not at once recognized as supreme 
authority. The world made only to be changed is of 
necessity distinguished from the Power and ruling that 
are to change it. It is ever the "present evil world" 
from which souls and societies are to be redeemed to 
ages of peace and immortality. 

How vast the range of evil ! It is vast as the range 
of the human mind, — vast as the possibility of human 
error. If man is exceptional and singular in his ap- 
prehensions of reality as compared with other animal 
natures, he is equally so in his liability to error and 
transgression, with all their consequences. The most 
awe-inspiring apprehensions that can visit the human 
mind have given birth to the most mistaken and hideous 
practices. The mystery of religious fear, devotion, godli- 
ness, works through errors of authority and errors of 
submission which no outward word, but only the inward 
revelation of God, can correct. From the barbarian of 
the barbarians, who thinks to appease his divinity and 
escape punishment by human sacrifices, to the Hebrew 
of the Hebrews, verily thinking he ought to do many 
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, against 
the lives of his followers, and on to the Christian of the 
Christians, who in the name of Jesus of Nazareth per- 
secutes unto the death the. disciples whose confession 
of faith is not in accord with his own, we have the same 
story of partial enlightenment, spiritual assumption, 
illusive expectation, and practical zeal not' according to 
knowledge. 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 169 

Grant that the world grows better in parts, that there 
are ever commg down out of heaven from God the 
working plans of a heavenly city ; still the world grows 
worse in parts, — quarries and workshops are not the 
city. The polished stones in the eternal mansions rear 
themselves to other music than the sound of our ham- 
mers. There is one clear voice, that of sublime prohi- 
bition to all fulfilment of human hopes and possibilities 
in the present order of nature; but in other respects 
the triumph of death is full of mysterious uncertainty. 
Now premature, quenching the kindling dawn of exist- 
ence with a touch ; again, languid and late, compelling 
the active powers to lie in cold obstruction and refusing 
the stroke of grace, the conqueror rules with a capricious 
and tyrannic terror. Under the reign of mortality good 
is ever eluding our grasp, evil is ever seizing upon our 
possessions. Good disappears in the past, hurries for- 
ward to the future, hides in the darkness of fate and 
in the mystery of God ; while in the same degree evil 
thrusts itself with obtrusive violence into the present 
sensation and consciousness, — a harpy to pollute the 
feast of life. Evil is of experience : good is of faith. 
Evil is a palpable precipitate : good is an invisible re- 
agent. Evil salutes us at our birth : good withdraws 
by the gate of death. But neither good nor evil reaches 
any final definition or conclusion. Evil discovers itself 
in what seems to be good : good is latent in what pre- 
sents the aspect of evil. The knowledge of good and 
evil inextricably mixed, as we naturally know good • and 
evil, involves a discipline of bodily suffering in the ratio 
of individual and collective error. Again, to know good 
and evil as we are spiritually learning to know them, 
involves a discipline of spiritual pain in the ratio of 



170 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

responsible disregard of personal obligation in view of 
recognized truth. The secret of life and immortality 
is for those who, having paid their physical penalties 
and having realized the love which is the perfection 
of responsibility and the fulfilling of law, no longer need 
the monitions of pain, — no longer learn obedience by 
suffering. 

But it must be admitted that if the manifold afflictions 
of the present life are part of a necessary discipline for 
the correction of human error and the development of 
personal responsibility, they are also a trial of faith, and 
are appealed to in the conflicts of thought as arguments 
and apologies of unbelief. 

It is not that the plagues of humanity are specially 
mysterious in detail, — whether they come by the arbi- 
trary dealings of men or according to the unvarying laws 
of nature. "The curse causeless does not come;" and 
the law of its administration may be traced in part, or 
its teaching could not be rationally appropriated. Hu- 
man conduct is ordinarily something to be understood 
and appreciated, both as to its motives and its results. 
A low nature is not mysterious by being low. A sen- 
sual man is not a mystery in so far as he is indifferent 
to spiritual aims ; nor is worldly ambition a mystery in 
being ahen to the revelation of divine law. The wars 
and tumults of men are on a different scale from those 
of insect nations ; but they can be just as clearly ac- 
counted for. They increase the variety within the unity 
of nature. 

On the contrary, mystery is the source and the refuge 
of faith. Absolute truth is absolute mystery. God is 
the mystery of the universe. Life is the mystery of 
creation. The eternal revelation of God in the progress 



PAINS AND PENALTIES. 171 

and consiimmatit)n of his intelligent offspring is the 
mystery of redemption. There is no series of growths 
wherein every part is not bound in the vital chain of 
organic law to the Source of being. No interweaving 
of voluntary efforts, no combination or movement of 
political powers, no determination of successive events, 
wherein both the law of personal agency and the law 
of physical limitation do not lead directly up to the 
Centre of government. But we know only in part. 
Our judgments, too little instructed as to the nature and 
meaning of facts, are also biassed by a strong feeling for 
ourselves. Then, too, imagination revels in poetic group- 
ing and coloring, — representations tragic and comic, 
that confuse the sense of reality. We are prone to 
morbid brooding over what we call "the mystery of 
evil;" by which is usually signified certain kinds and 
aggregates of human misery, — visitations of destruc- 
tion, reigns of terror, agonies of pity, tortures of oppres- 
sion, outbreaks of crime, — blended into massive horror 
without reference to law, and spread as a pall over the 
cheerful day that is uttering its speech about the mystery 
of good. Notwithstanding so much that is cheerful in 
life, not only the passionate soul but the much-enduring 
race of man is restlessly heaving to and fro, its thoughts 
running this way and that way in anxious suspicions 
and sacrificial inquiries as to why the Power that rules 
in the world should mark his administration with such 
and so many tokens of opposition and displeasure 
towards his utterly dependent subjects. 

Is it that the Demon of the world is malignant or 
envious, and will not tolerate happiness among men 
without a tribute of blood in purchase of his forbear- 
ance? We can point to plenty of sinister conceptions 



172 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

for divinity, whose names and worship 'support no better 
meanmg. But this will not do. Man may be an object 
of pity, but a divinity must not be an object of reproach 
under a form of homage. 

Then, may it not be that while God is good and just, 
man is unconsciously and immeasurably rebellious ? We 
in our ignorance have wrecked the creation ; and the 
Spirit that moved upon the face of the waters at first 
with the fiat of all-animating order, is left to brood over 
the chaos come again, the moral ruin of the world, with 
the forlorn hope of saving with infinite difficulty a 
remnant from destruction. 

But is not this to defend the divine goodness at the 
expense of the divine power ? The world must be still in 
the hands of its Creator. He is equal to whatever he may 
desire or determine as respects the destiny of mankind. 
Must we not infer, therefore, with St. Augustine, that 
his purpose is to make use of our already condemned 
race for the practical exhibition of two phases of the 
divine character and government, — namely, the phase of 
vindictive justice in the majority as a manifestation 
of what all deserved, and the phase of gratuitous mercy 
in a considerable number as a proof of what grace he 
was able to bestow;^ and that this life is simply the 

1 Hinc est nniversa generis humani massa damnata : quoniam qui hoc 
primitus admisit, cum ea quce in illo fuerat radicata sua stirpe puuitus 
est, ut nullus ab hoc justo debitoque supplicio, nisi misericordia et 
indebita gratia liberetur ; atque ita dispertiatur genus humanum, ut in 
quibusdara demon stretur quid valeat misericors gratia, in cseteris justa 
vindicta. Neque enim utrumque demonstraretur in omnibus : quia si 
omnes remanerent in pcenis istae damnationis, in nuUo appareret miseri- 
cors gratia redimentis : rursum si omnes a tenebris transferrentur in 
lucem, in nullo appareret severitas ultionis. In qua propterea multo 
plures quam in ilia sunt, ut sic ostendatur quid omnibus deberetur. — 
De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi. c. 12. 



PAINS AND PENALTIES, 173 

preparation for these unchangeable distinctions of the 
endless future ? 

But this dogmatic distribution of human destiny in 
the unknown future is an affair of limited knowledge 
and feeble judgment. It assumes that the divine attri- 
butes are to realize their eternal satisfaction in separate- 
ness and distinction, not in reconciliation and oneness. 
What, then, is the glory of just punishment conceived 
as an end in itself, if it be not the glory of a final and 
magnificent failure in disciplinary moral government? 
Eather than distinguish the moral perfections of the 
Creator by such contradictory issues of his tutelary 
administration, how much more natural and less terrible 
to suppose that having made the worlds he has left them 
to go very much their own way ; and that man, with all 
his intelligence, is to work out his own little measure 
of life and enjoyment as simply the head of the great 
family of beasts that perish ! 

These alternative extremes of thought, it must be 
confessed, are extremely forbidding. They are, all and 
several, open to the objection of representing the whole 
system of government to which we belong as an im- 
measurably worse thing than the little province with 
which we are acquainted. Either on the one hand we 
are filled with foreboding of lasting evils that we know 
not of, which make the ills we have seem trivial except 
as premonitions of our doom ; or, on the other hand, the 
unknown but not unhoped-for career of personal service 
and enjoyment, in which the ills we have might be ac- 
counted for and compensated, is taken away. 

But the alternatives from which we recoil have their 
rational significance with reference to that middle way 
on which we go forward in the experience of life. Find- 



174 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ing physical pain to serve as sentinel warning us against 
greater pains to which we are liable, we learn at length 
to construe all our sufferings according to a law of benev- 
olence. We infer that our liability to error and conse- 
quent correction, as individuals and as a race, is related 
to the measureless orbit in which we are moving ; accord- 
ing to the expression of Origen that " God governs souls 
not with reference to the fifty years of the present life, 
but with reference to an ilhmitable age." ^ 

1 Origen, De Principiis, lib. iii. c. i. 13. Ante-Xicene Christian 
Library, T. k T. Clark, Edinburgh. 



CHAPTEE TV. 

OF PHYSICAL DEATH AS RELATED TO SPIRITUAL 
DEVELOPMENT. 



o 



F late we have become familiar with the thoiight 
that throughout the whole range of animated 
nature on our planet the war for subsistence would be 
waged only the more violently, other things being as 
they are, were a longer lease of life given to the various 
species by their organic law. From the cosmical admin- 
istration which supports life with life and gives scope 
to reproductive energy by cancelling outworn organisms, 
there is no appeal. If all generations, animal and vege- 
table, for so many ages have gone "the way of dusty 
death" that the creatures of to-day might have their 
turn in the light and air, the creatures of to-day have 
no choice but to follow their predecessors when the 
signal shall be given. 

Death has been called " the debt of nature " and " the 
wages of sin." These allegorical phrases are plain enough 
in their general significance. It is their particular appli- 
cation that brings us into difficulty. Why should nature 
exact her debt from myriads who have had no time to 
contract personal obligations ? Why should the wages 
of sin be paid to myriads who have had no opportunity 
to sin after the similitude of any moral transgression ? 



176 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

A difficulty in the application of a figure of speech will 
lead some minds to construe nature according to the 
figure, while it will constrain other minds to accommo- 
date the figure to nature. 

Whatever debts contracted or transgressions commit- 
ted may come to judgment in the dying of individuals, 
it is certainly proper to look at death as first of all some- 
thing in the physical order. A man may be more or less 
responsible with respect to many misdoings whose effect 
is to hasten or imbitter his dying ; yet for his dying 
itself, as a physical claim enforced by physical process, 
he is no more responsible than for his birth. 

Our physical economy has a sphere of its own distinct 
from the sphere of moral determinations. Intellectual 
efforts and agitations of feeling have their effects upon 
the body in accordance with physical law; and these 
effects are not at once distinguished or measured by 
moral motives. The noblest intention cannot save a 
man from the physical cost of his zeal. The basest 
motive has no immediate and characteristic tendency 
to cripple or exhaust the physical resources. Whether 
a man is serving righteousness or sin, he serves with 
a certain expenditure of natural force which is never 
mistaken for the exaction of moral law. And even when 
vice inflicts in process of time a characteristic stigma 
upon the body, this only indicates in what way moral 
delinquency has connected itself with the transgression 
of physical law without in the least identifying physical 
suffering with moral retribution. In fact, so sharp does 
the distinction at length become between one's moral 
personality and one's bodily organization, that the latter 
is looked upon as merely a possession and instrument of 
the former. The flesh is not only heir to natural shocks, 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. Ill 

it is brought into peril and suffering in all commercial, 
political, and moral struggles ; while death is defied as 
aiming its shafts, according to the saying of Epictetus, 
at " not you, but that insignificant body of yours." 

The general fact of our history as part of the animal 
creation is this : since the life of the race depends upon 
the life of individuals, while the life of individuals is 
conditioned on the persistency of the race, it follows 
that death is indispensable to the general economy of 
earthly existence in order that the function of the indi- 
vidual and the function of the race may be attempered 
to each other. If, therefore, we see mankind wisely and 
benevolently constituted with respect to their environ- 
ment and all the natural resources on which organic 
existence depends, how can we reasonably doubt that 
the laws which limit organic existence are adjusted and 
administered with equal wisdom and kindness ? Do we 
not take social order, the absence of prevailing violence, 
as proof of how far individuals and parties are held in 
check so as neither to tower threateningly above, nor to 
linger fatally below, their serviceableness to the general 
welfare ? On the other hand, we interpret the agitations 
that affirm prevailing discontent as evidence that the 
social mass is seeking to throw off some incubus of per- 
sonal power. But everywhere and always men are held 
together in mutual helpfulness and common welfare 
by the practical working of the law which takes all 
in succession away from the present struggle. By the 
teaching of this universal mortality the personal being 
is consecrated as a mystery of faith and sacrifice which 
can give no adequate account of itself except as destined 
to survive the physical dissolution and to move onward 
in a career of its own. 

12 



178 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

One's earthly life is precious because there is so little 
of it. Life could not be the spiritual reality that it is, 
without death ; and death ceases to awaken fear, when 
faith has grown strong in the rational conception of life. 
Indeed, the natural dread of death is the negative testi- 
mony to the value of life. If the loss of life is looked 
upon as the symbol of all evil, what can life be but the 
essence of all good ? If the common consciousness of 
mankind contemplates physical life as a boon worthy 
of being distributed through a race, is it something other 
than a boon because individuals cannot have it forever ? 
And then, why judge of death without experience of 
what it is, not merely in relation to what is agreeable 
to us now, but in relation to what may concern us here- 
after ? If the anticipation of death makes for our higher 
personal life, why not assume that our personal hfe shall 
be much more indebted to the experience of death ? At 
any rate, we are not merely entitled to put the best 
rational construction upon what we know, in the interest 
of the present as well as the future ; we are bound to 
do it. We cannot, without violence to reason, adopt a 
working hypothesis which discredits and discourages the 
noblest efforts we are constituted to put forth, not less 
than the best hopes we are constituted to entertain. 

It is certainly remarkable that all the proneness of 
human nature to the animal life has never been able 
to nullify the spiritual suggestion of personal existence 
after death. This appears in the animism of " primitive 
culture" as set forth by Mr. Tylor not less distinctly 
than in the philosophy of Plato and Cicero, or in the 
forecast of religious faith among historic peoples. Every- 
where there is the deep human longing for redemption 
from the power of the grave, the instinctive persuasion 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. 179 

growing into rational conviction that man shall some- 
how, under new conditions of life, find indemnity for 
the darkness and deprivation that settle down upon the 
senses in death. 

Equally significant is the testimony of experience that, 
as the belief that death belongs to an economy of univer- 
sal good- will justifies itself by its practical tendency 
to raise life to its utmost value while correspondingly 
reducmg the fear of evil in dying, so the contrary 
assumption, that death is of a malignant intention, is 
set to demonstrate its own absurdity by its necessary 
tendency to wither the joys and aggravate the troubles 
of existence, till life under the shadow of death is appre- 
hended as the evil of nature, while relapse into nothing- 
ness represents the fulness of hope. 

Nature with infinite patience is evermore vindicating 
the intention of the Author of nature : holding up to 
the wise a good toward which they are to aspire, in con- 
tradistinction to the relative not good, or evil, from which 
the foolish are called upon to escape. In the physical 
economy pain cannot do its work as an instant admoni- 
tion for the preservation of life without the instinctive 
fear of something in which bodily injuries may end. 
But this really means that it is our spiritual career 
which is most deeply indebted to the admonitions ad- 
dressed to us by the suffering and dissolution of the 
body. Our physical organization is not only in the inter- 
est of the race, — designed for the propagation and dis- 
tribution of life, and constituted to pass away lest life 
should exceed the limits of common well-being; but it 
is also and equally the servant of the individual, — 
suited to the working out of a spiritual intention, and 
dispensed with when it can no longer answer that pur- 



180 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

pose. We do not have our personal progress here, which 
is life, without something to change and pass away, 
which is death. We are given something to sacrifice, 
something with which to pay our entrance-fee to the 
higher departments of experience and effort, something 
outward to be at stake upon our inward determinations. 
The Power that exacts the fee or the sacrifice may well 
be trusted as to the reason and usefulness of his law. 

But although to mistrust and to misconstrue the good 
is the real evil as well as the aggravation of all inciden- 
tal aspects of evil, certainly the outward semblance of 
evil in the development of mankind is something not 
to be argued down. If faith cannot penetrate the secret 
of good, neither is unbelief wholly without reason as to 
the signs of evil. What but immortality revealed in the 
Christ and in humanity can put any one into the right 
relation with that vicarious suffering in which the race 
serves the individual and the individual serves the race ? 
How many have to die before they are born, or very soon 
after, — ''martyrs in deed though not in will" to the 
truth that mankind must study and obey the laws of life, 
in order that other generations may come forth under 
better conditions ! How many have their days shortened 
or their strength weakened, in order that they may be 
pricked on intellectually and morally to the duty they 
owe to even the physical well-being of themselves and 
others ! 

In human nature the physical organization is all the 
time addressing itself to a conscious intelligence and 
moral sense. It is by physical nourishment and stimu- 
lus that there grows up gradually a responsible agent, 
with spiritual relations and under spiritual law. The 
human creature, child and heir of its race, moves toward 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. 181 

the fulness of being as the child and heir of the Creator. 
The process is the development of personality. Human- 
ity exists, works, longs, and suffers for the personal man. 
The personal man is held to tlie payment of a reciprocal 
debt to humanity, whether in the use of powers or in 
the surrender of life. He must read Scriptures, consult 
oracles, offer prayers, and not decline the benevolent 
demand for sacrifice. He cannot have his capital of 
truth all at once, nor duly estimate his obligation in the 
use even of what is given him. Gradually he must win 
his way, invent his apparatus, prosecute his experiments, 
and accumulate his gains. It is for him to move in 
the direction of the hint, suggestion, or premonition of 
truth, — that is, to move by faith ; or else, missing the 
alchemy that transmutes all things to gold, he is in dan- 
ger of falling into the error of unbelief, which, disregard- 
ful of commanding motives, is unequal to successful 
experiment, allowing the choicest elements to be lost 
in dross and slag. 

Turn the horse's attention towards the precipice by 
the wayside, and he will be stimulated to avoid it. In 
like manner the immediate sense of personal duty is 
quickened by vague apprehensions of remote catastro- 
phes that beset the path of life, until as life approaches 
its end the prudential shrinking from danger is no longer 
needed. The law of the Creator, under which we are 
trained to our responsible activity, " is perfect, converting 
the soul." Thought is occupied with reasons more or less 
convincing, for this way or that way. Different pleas 
are presented to the judgment. Persuasion and dissua- 
sion end in one determination and one action. Personal 
autonomy, self-direction, under the law which governs 
all, — this is the great distinction of man, and, in connec- 



182 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

tion with limited knowledge and imperfect character, 
his primal danger. Law regulates the alternatives to be 
presented : the free soul makes choice of the alternative 
to be accepted. Law points out the steps by which men 
go up or go down, — the degrees and means of advance- 
ment or decrradation : the free will determines the 
attention, zeal, and effort of personal progress. More 
and more the personal sovereignty asserts itself in each 
separate man. He possesses and uses not only his own 
body but material nature in general ; and, though sub- 
ject in a way to both, is not of necessity servile to either. 
But do something he must. Either as a man of faith, 
finding life limited and death certain, he shall subordi- 
nate physical existence to spiritual law, and make both 
his living and dying a testimony to supreme reality ; or 
else he shall have his ruling interest in the physical and 
worldly life to the disparagement of spiritual considera- 
tions, despite the certainty that his coveted happiness 
will be cut short, and his expectation for the future 
darkened. Benevolent, impartial death is the angel of 
redemption to both the faithful and the unbelieving. 
It is death, whose unmistakable nearness and steady 
approach makes the self-sacrifice of enlightened and 
prophetic spirits not too great for their virtue ; and it is 
death that limits the temptation to disloyalty and apos- 
tasy, since, though any should be willmg to deny their 
souls for the sake of their bodies, it can avail but little. 
Death is still certain and still near. 

In short, man in the body is like the lamb in the 
fable, that fled into the temple to escape the wolf. The 
lamb's blood was sure to flow ; and so the lamb might 
choose, not indeed between living and dying, but between 
giving his blood upon the altar of divine service and 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. 183 

giving it to feed the hunger of his natural foe. To die 
is the common lot. To yield up the spirit piously is the 
free choice of the faithful. To fall into the jaws of the 
devourer is the fatal alternative of unbelief. To reach 
the end of sufferings incident to the processes by 
which death is reached, is the constitutional privilege 
which faith cannot dispense with and unbelief cannot 
forfeit. 

We find, therefore, that use of our resources and 
opportunities under correction of natural law is to teach 
us how not to abuse them. Our first trials are most 
prone to error, while our later conduct is usually ordered 
w^ith more prudence. The whole period of mortal exist- 
ence is employed in starting the personal being, which 
can attain to completeness only by being transplanted. 
The revelation of God in man's spirit must needs tran- 
scend the present weakness of nature, or come short of 
its rational fulfilment. 

Meanwhile, when it is considered that individual and 
social habits form themselves in advance of the ripening 
judgment ; that veterans in the experience of life cannot 
so instruct raw recruits as that they will not have to 
learn their duty through error and suffering ; that the 
physical struggle, the momentum of material interests 
and national enterprises, implies a necessary preoccu- 
pation of powers intended ultimately for better things, — 
it may well be feared that man will not soon escape 
from what seems " the persistent tendency of his develop- 
ment to take a wrong direction," however " exceptional " 
or " singular " the tendency may be regarded as compared 
with the way in which other orders of living things 
"fulfil the conditions of their being." 

But when we come to the marks of a wrong direction 



184 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

in man's development and find that they are manifold 
and repulsive, is it for ns to ask: Why are so many 
products of human intelligence and energy given over 
to destruction ? Why is personal discipline so severe ? 
Why is the world always travailing in pain that the 
world to come may be brought forth ? Why so much 
evil in the endeavor to realize good? Should we not 
inquire more wisely if our questions were guided by 
religious confidence rather than by natural distrust? 
How is it that human societies, imperfect as they are, 
rule without ruining the individual destiny ? By what 
genial spirit of law are conflicting interests and strug- 
gling powers held in a certain equilibrium, so as to 
secure a constant trial rather than a mere foregone con- 
clusion of personal conduct and character ? Wliat is the 
check upon the strong man's usurpations, when he has 
become the idol of his tribe, if it be not the limitation 
of individual life and the development of the popular 
power? What adequate restraint upon the insolent 
demands or ignorant aspirations of a populace as against 
the necessary personal offices of sober government, if 
there be no death to dissolve adventurous compacts 
before they can be completely formed, while society is 
renewing itself according to a traditional and necessary 
order? How otherwise shall the true leader have his 
opportunity and influence with the people, and the peo- 
ple have their trial in appreciating the serviceable man ? 
How otherwise shall so much good be realized with so 
little evil ? 

Seeing that death and destruction enter so effectively 
into the economy of nature, men learn to appeal to them 
as motives. They combine, that they may wield more 
effectively the power of death. They develop organs 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. 185 

and engines of destruction to be employed in the conduct 
of affairs. Opposing forces are discharged, not in the 
quiet order of nature, but in the shock of battle, that 
the forces remainmg may rearrange themselves under 
new conditions. The divine Providence is often con- 
strued, not with reference to a universal intention, but 
as on the side of the strongest party. But then, the cost 
of war calls attention to both the prudential and moral 
considerations that forbid the appeal to arms except as 
a measure of last resort ; and thus violence without law 
and without religion becomes the part of savages and 
enemies of their kind. The hero is known by his risking 
his life for those who need defence against the giants of 
arbitrary cruelty. The moral rank not only of an indi- 
vidual but of a people is marked by the manner of 
reducing death to the service of life. Death and destruc- 
tion never say, It is enough, — so long as there is wicked- 
ness to be punished, unbelief to be convinced, faith to be 
tried, or virtue to be glorified, upon earth. Grant that 
the sacrifice of life imbitters the experience while it 
chastens the characters of men, — who can say that it is 
not also for the relief of man's estate in provisionally 
adjusting or seasonably adjourning the conflicts that 
signalize the progress of sgciety ? How else could old 
prejudice and prescription be so safely withdrawn, giving 
to untried disciples of Truth and Love a sober and 
moderate success befitting the state of discipline, where- 
in the struggle of faith and loyalty against appetite and 
ambition is ever to open anew ? 

We are not, therefore, to contemplate death as having 
exclusive reference to man's cosmical conditions, and to 
the ceon of man as one of the animal races in the strug- 
gle of physical life. It has a bearing of the utmost 



186 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

importance upon his spiritual discipline. If the present 
life is childhood and schooling, how needful that the 
days of this tutelage should be shortened to such a 
period as would not forbid man to bring the elements 
of his training within the compass of his intellectual 
faculties and moral sensibilities. Life being short at the 
longest, man feels the demand for prudence and diligence 
in the conduct of life with a view to its immediate value 
and longer continuance. An apprehension of the near- 
ness of death reacts in favor of good personal aims and 
efforts ; while, as the passing days diminish the body's 
time and deteriorate its functions, the temptation to sac- 
rifice conscience and faith — the tokens of endless hfe — 
for the sake of a poor remnant of animal existence, is 
losing its power. 

Let us imagine now, instead of our common experience 
of nonage and decay, an experiment of vastly greater 
persistency and accumulation in all the powers and 
products of life. Let the organic law be capable of 
bearing a very great strain. No fruit inflicts immediate 
pain or suggests remote danger. No ordinary violence 
shows any tendency to snap the thread of life. No 
pressing appeal is made for prudence or science in 
observing or ascertaining the conditions of health ; and 
hence there is no immediately effective check upon the 
struggles of selfishness and ambition. The demigods 
of former generations — clii majorum gentium — keep a 
mighty hold upon their sceptres. More and more the 
new life is compelled to take the shape and motion of 
the old. Society becomes a thing of conditions and 
fatahties, into which it is the more a misfortune to be 
born the remoter is the prospect of escape by the door 
of death. And if the patriarchal power is ever to be 



DEATH AS CONDUCIVE TO LIFE. 187 

checked, if the party of more recent generations is ever 
to bear sway, how should such a revolution come but by 
terrific explosion, by calling upon death through all 
conceivable energies of destruction as a release from the 
stricture of unrelenting time ? If we were to take the 
life -periods of the antediluvian patriarchs as exactly 
expressed in terms of our modern reckoning, and withal 
as wisely adapted to the world-work of their age, would 
it not give a vivid and terrible meaning to the statements 
that " there were giants in the earth in those days," that 
" the wickedness of man was great," that the earth was 
" filled with violence through them ; " — a meaning such 
as would make the Deluge appear a mercy not less than 
a judgment, and the shortening of man's life the note 
of a new and more hopeful era ? 



CHAPTEE V. 

DETERRENT CONSEQUENCES OF DELIBERATE UNBELIEF. 

"\"\ THAT is essential to peace and hope as respects the 
^ ^ manifestation of so-called evil is to distinguish 
between evil as the error and misconduct incident to 
moral development, and evil as the unhappy experience 
naturally ensuing upon such error and misconduct. 

Evil of the latter kind, being fitted to convey salutary 
rebuke and warning, is transferred by the law of reason 
and faith to the account of good. It is held to be good 
in the creative purpose, and good in its bearing upon 
human destiny as a whole. 

Unbelief — indifference to ideal truth through pre- 
occupation in common affairs, distrust of the infinite 
unknown, treating inspired prophecies as a deceptive 
mirage, and stubborn facts as the unchangeable type of 
reality — can neither do nor suffer nobly. It involves 
a voluntary predetermination not to take advantage 
of life's disciplmary purpose in its highest sense. A 
weakness for scepticism, a mood of mind and habit 
of argumentation which refuses to entertain, and of 
course does not keep pace with, the rational intimations 
of personal immortality in communion with the Author 
of being, ought to bring the unbelieving man in the 
process of his experience to a sense of his self-imposed 



CONSEQUENCES OF UNBELIEF. 189 

limitations. How can he avoid coming at length to 
regard his material organization, not as a tent to be 
struck on the march to liigher destinies, but as a prison 
to shrink and fall, burying the nobler manhood in its 
ruins? As personal consciousness becomes more and 
more the centre of a distinct and unique interest, how 
should it not, in that very fact, more and more abhor 
the prejudgment which dooms it to destruction under 
the pressure of physical change ? For such a prejudg- 
ment imports more than the loss of personal conscious- 
ness in the measure of one's present capacities; it is 
■the negation of an infinite progress, in which the ideal 
of man is conceived as fulfilled through the operation 
of God. 

To disregard the boundless possibilities of being in 
attempting to define a certain nucleus of knowledge is, 
of "course, to impose upon knowledge a character and 
meaning according to the limits defined. Deny all ideal 
fulfilments of things, and the partial elements of reality 
have nothing to atone for their repulsive features. Un- 
behef in this way can make for itself not only a bad 
world, but the worst. It can prostitute all the beneficent 
correlations of the cosmos, — infinite skill and infinite 
kindness, — to support the hypothesis of a world- will 
carrying on the poor play of life through an illusive and 
tantalizing consciousness, that acts its personal part only 
because it is the victim of false visions of faith and 
hope. It can construe all success as being only in order 
to realize the more astounding collapse and failure, — 
turning the triumphs of mind into trophies of decay. That 
which is ideally the best becomes a fascinating dream ; 
that which is practically the worst, a frightful reality. 
The anticipated lapse into unconsciousness is soothing to 



190 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

fraud and violence in the enjoyment of ill-gotten gains ; 
for judgment to come is their dread. On the other 
hand, self-sacrificing virtue intent upon the welfare of 
mankind bears its last testimony against an adverse 
judgment here, and is denied the life to come. •' One 
soweth and another reapeth," — the saying is as true of 
ages as of individual men; but the empty eternity of 
unbelief has no season of common fruition, when " both 
he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." 
The incarnate humanity is dissolvmg day by day; it 
never fulfils its spiritual promises. Unbelief is positive 
about dissolution, negative as to the spiritual consumma- 
tion which is the higher meaning of hfe. The fathers 
cannot reach perfection without the children, nor the 
children without the fathers. Unbelief sees a race con- 
tinuing for the sake of individuals, and individuals 
consecrated to the service of a race ; but either cannot 
admit, or sets itself to deny, the spiritual ages, when 
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but have 
come to a personal equality with the ideal angels, as 
children of God and of the resurrection. All this viola- 
tion of the essential proprieties of thought is on the way 
to a last contradiction of reason, when it comes to the 
necessary idea of oneness, — oneness of cause and one- 
ness of intention, — accredited m the constitution of 
things. 

Unbelief in its moral sense cannot exist without some 
degree of personal responsibility with respect to the 
revelation of rational truth. That absence of belief, 
which is the absence of knowledge, power, experience, 
responsibility, while as yet the personal embryo has not 
come to self-consciousness, is a condition privative with 
respect equally to both the evil and the good of moral 



CONSEQUENCES OF UNBELIEF. 191 

agency. Not till the polarities of thought begin to be 
developed by contact with reality, does unbelief become 
the name for all our moral evil in contradistinction from 
faith, the principle of all our righteousness. Only as the 
antithesis of faith, — as the reluctant and disobedient 
action with respect to what is givuig proof of itself as 
the true personal calUng, — does unbelief sum up our 
moral delinquency, so as to stand for the spiritual 
man neglecting his spiritual duty in a wilful addiction 
to something else as more gratifying or advantageous 
for the moment. The unbeliever is aware of his birth- 
right; and for that reason alone is he profane in his 
exclusive regard for the mess of pottage. The simple 
animal is not the partisan of the animal nature, for that 
comprises its whole motive of life. To the animal there 
is death, but no exasperated ghost to trouble it with the 
dread of something after death. Only the inner dark- 
ness of partiality, indocility, and deeds that shrink from 
light has for its necessary correlate the outer darkness, 
the eternal negation of true life, from which the spirit 
recoils. 

Indeed, it is because unbelief is negative to truth pos- 
sessed, as well as negative to the truth to be imparted, 
that it is so positive in its personal manifestation. Often 
it acts with an arbitrary intensity which indicates the 
force of argument and persuasion against it. There may 
be a natural disinclination to take the next lesson ; but 
it requires an energy of will to resist the demand of 
faith when it comes with the authority of a teacher. 
Yet as faith is free or it is not faith, so coercive processes 
for the propagation of faith may provoke a violent re- 
sistance to the sway of truth. The promulgation of 
truth rouses human nature, not only in so far as there 



192 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

is in human nature an affinity for truth, but in its whole 
range of motives. All interests have to assert themselves 
in order that all may have their due consideration ; for 
so only can patient reason do its perfect work. 

The prophet of new and nobler things is the man who 
proposes to move the universal human life, not merely 
to readjust a few practical details. He intends to awaken 
the higher energies and to shatter the popular idols, — to 
cleanse the very temple of God. If heavenly thought 
is higher than earthly habit, for that very reason shall 
the cliildren of hght be found awkward and unequal to 
their tasks, while the children of a commonplace world 
are wise and accomplished in their affairs. If men are 
startled from their religious repose, their first impulse 
is to appeal from the quickening' teacher to their holy 
books. If a moral reformation is the demand, men make 
haste and delay not to take counsel of their material 
interests. 

In the higher ranges of disciplined thought, least of 
all is progress by unquestioning assent. Philosophers 
debate in order that prophets may divine ; and statesmen 
know not how to salute the new doctor till he has tri- 
umphed over the old doctrine. The forces of criticism 
and contradiction rally promptly, that the power of 
truth may bring the argument to a more decisive 
conclusion. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EVIL AS SET FORTH IN THE CHKIST'S TEACHING. 

THE Scriptural rendering of human history as respects 
the distinction of good and evil is through human 
nature. It is supernatural only as it involves the divine 
suggestion and energy moving in nature for such a 
progress and consummation as shall fulfil the creative 
purpose. The divine witness against the manifestation 
of evil is through the correlative manifestation of good. 
The whole revelation of God in the world, including 
those aspects of it which are regarded as miraculous, 
is through nature — -not outside of nature; while the 
eminent expression of a creative reason is found in those 
inspirations, instructions, examples, and vital influences, 
that make for the harmony and perfection of mankind. 

Inasmuch as the Scriptures are found to exhibit an 
historical testimony to one only Creator, conceived as 
moving in universal nature, but declaring himself as a 
personal Euler and Providence in the convictions of 
mankind, and finally speaking through one man as the 
Word of God, — it is evident that their claim to universal 
acceptance and authority is in the reality which they 
represent. Whether they be counted true or untrue, the 
spiritual intention apparent in them, which construes 
them sacred Scriptures in distinction from ordinary 

13 



194 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

writings, cannot be denied. As the faith in God, which 
the Scriptures illustrate, rests upon the evidence of 
universal reality, so the faith of Jesus Christ, in which 
they culminate, rests upon the absolute fidelity of Christ's 
testimony to the divine working in human nature. Al- 
ways it is the universal reality which governs faith, — 
not faith which constitutes any reality but its own. If 
the sense of reality be weak, faith is feeble. If the sense 
of reahty be limited, faith is limited. The miracle which 
accredits the commission of a prophet, or the striking 
object in nature which excites imagination as the en- 
shrinement of a god, — what is either compared with 
the miracle of universal nature which affirms the one 
God ? 1 Those are not justly called the ages of faith 
which exhibit great credulity, and equal error. Not that 
they are without faith, but their faith is as meagre and 
vague as is their knowledge of the truth. The times of 
ignorance are times of necessary and excusable unbelief. 
But when the personal Eevelation of truth appears, then 
comes the command that all men everywhere should 
change their thoughts and become his disciples.^ 

There was faith and there was unbelief under the old 
dispensation ; and the distinction between personal right- 
eousness and personal unrighteousness was ever inwardly 
the distinction between faith and unbelief, as principles 
of conduct.^ But the world-history was cut in twain by 
the coming of our Lord. He introduced the new age 
of faith, which was the day of judgment to a whole 
aeon of unbelief. The world that '' knew him not," his 
own that " received him not," the empire and the hier- 
archy that combined to resist and crucify him, — aU are 
thrown by the crisis of his revelation into the era of 

1 Eom. i. 20. 2 Acts xvii. 22-31. 3 Heb. si. 



CHEIST'S TEACHING. 195 

ignorance. They are shadows of a by-gone history. The 
great mass of mankind was found to be in the darkness 
not merely of partial knowledge, but of unfaithfulness 
in some degree to the light that is in every man. The 
world was wise in its conceits, accomplishments, routine, 
— not wise in faith, foresight, hope. While, therefore, 
Jesus was setting himself to fulfil the law and the pro- 
phets, as to their divine intention and positive meaning, 
the world was set chiefly upon that literal and conven- 
tional obedience which is prone, by making void the law 
of good, to fulfil the prophecy of evil. 

As important as was the coming of our Lord to the 
revelation of the Father, so important was it, according 
to the New Testament, in the history of all his human 
children. It is conceived as that turning-point of uni- 
versal experience which, by perfectly marking the differ- 
ence between humanity in its initial imperfection and 
humanity as partaking completely of the divine Spirit, 
marked also, and just as perfectly, the necessity, possi- 
bility, and method, of man's reconciliation, whether with 
his Creator, his race, or himself. Only through the rev- 
elation of God in man is it held to be possible for man 
to fulfil the law of his being. 

But inasmuch as our Lord's mission was to draw all 
men unto himself, — not to pronounce at that day a final 
sentence upon any, — the arraignment of men was pro- 
visional and disciplinary. The judgment against them 
was that, light having come into the world, " men loved 
darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil." 
Men of the world would go on according to their worldly 
momentum, and fill up the measure of their iniquity 
before apprehending the immeasurable condescension 
and patience of God, on which their eternal redemption 



196 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

was depending. Yet this moral condemnation takes just 
account of palliating considerations in its estimate of 
sin. It tones down the blood-red hue of most fearful 
crime to the duller complexion of pervading unbelief. 
" Of sia because they believe not on me," — what other 
conviction need the Spirit of truth beget in the spirits 
of men, in order to save them from their sins ? " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do, " — 
infinite considerateness for the blind offender, that he 
may not despair of pardon when he shall come to the 
sense of righteousness ! Such is the revelation of grace 
and truth as conceived in Scripture, through which the 
Prince of life judges and casts out the power that is 
contrary to life, and introduces the reign of God to the 
knowledge and faith of mankind. 

But the dividing of the old world-age from the Chris- 
tian era implies no sudden revolution, to be recognized 
on the day when it occurred. Our Lord describes the 
reign of God as not coming with observation. It is too 
vital, too deep within. Like the leaven, like the seed, 
its progress is accordiag to its own law. The reign of 
God distinguishes eras only because it distinguishes 
society, — yea, divides asunder the very soul and spirit 
of the individual man. The poiut which indicates the 
line of distinction between the spiritual reign of God and 
what is negative to it, whether in general history or in 
personal experience, is the poiat where the action of faith 
meets the counteraction of unbelief, as respects the move- 
ment of divine revelation. No geographical, political, 
or family demarcation is of any permanent significance. 
The kingdom of God is all-comprehending as well as all- 
discerning. The Word of truth is for every creature. 
But as certainly as faith is the law of human fellowship 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 197 

with the Lord's mind, will, effort, suffering, and success, 
so certainly is unbelief the correlative measure of aliena- 
tion from his spirit and work. Faith brings men from 
the four quarters of the globe and gives them seats with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. 
Unbelief keeps the so-called children of the kingdom in 
outer darkness, though they should inhabit the very 
penetralia of the visible sanctuary. Faith is assured 
" that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh 
righteousness is accepted with him." Unbelief has 
respect of persons and prescriptions : " Except ye be 
circumcised and keep the law of Moses, ye cannot be 
saved." Jews as such continue to require signs, and 
Greeks before the coming of the new faith are seeking 
after wisdom, — neither at first finding anything but 
scandal or folly in the cross ; but to every one that 
believeth, whether Jew or Greek, Christ the crucified is 
" the power of God and the wisdom of God." 

Thus, according to the New Testament, the new world- 
age takes color gradually from the truth of Christ, while 
gradually the old dispensation is thrown into a back- 
ground of darkness; and not until the new times are 
fulfilled can the distinction between the old and the new 
have been exhibited in full historic detail. As the dis- 
pensation of law was prophetic, so is now the dispensa- 
tion of the Word and Spirit. Young men see visions, 
and old men dream dreams. But the ruling fact declared 
is that the Seed of promise has been approved and glori- 
fied of God. And now, to call on the name of the Lord, 
to make the appeal of faith according to the inward reve- 
lation of truth, — this is the eternal law of salvation. 

If, however, we look to the Scriptures for Christ's 
estimate of human behavior under divine discipline, we 



198 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

find that the grosser elements of man's nature, which 
stand for unbelief, are recognized as in necessary correla- 
tion with the higher faculties concerned in the actions 
of faith. "We may figure this correlation by the wave 
that rises not only before but also against the wind that 
is moving upon the face of the waters. The Word that 
is spirit and life discerns the thoughts and intents of the 
heart, and brings out their polarities. " Follow me," says 
Jesus ; but did any disciple so follow as to indicate no 
contrary tendency ? " I will follow thee whithersoever 
thou goest," says a man of forward faith, without waiting 
to be specially called. But Jesus bids him pause. It be- 
hooves to consider what that following means : " Foxes 
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests ; but 
the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." 

To enter upon the discipline of faith, is that to reach 
the end of discipleship ? On the contrary, every pulsa- 
tion of faith has its natural reaction of unbelief ; and the 
most confident profession of fidelity may be to the deeper 
moral insight a natural premonition of failure. " Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; for flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven," — 
ample recognition of faith ! " Get thee behind me, Satan. 
Thou art an offence unto me. For thou savorest not 
the things that be of God, but the things that be of 
men," — prompt rebuke of unbeUef ! " Though I should 
die with thee, yet will I never deny thee in any wise," — 
free intent of faith ! But he began to curse and to 
swear, saying, " I know not this man of whom ye speak," 
— fearful recoil of unbelief ! But there cannot be these 
opposite extremes without the constant antagonism of 
spiritual and carnal principles. " Thou canst not follow 
me now," — the moment is too critical, the trial too 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 199 

hard, — " but thou shalt follow me afterwards." For, 
not until Peter shall have taken the last lesson of his 
Master's passion will there have been given him the full 
victory which as disciple and apostle he was invited 
to win. 

Thus it is that Jesus appears chief of the many to 
whom the Scriptures bear testimony that they " wrought 
rio-hteousness," in the fact that of him alone it is affirmed 
that he " did no sin." His oneness in spirit with the 
Father is held to assure the perfect consecration of 
physical life. Acting under the guidance of universal 
love, he does not fall under the bondage of animal 
instincts nor into any complicity with selfish habits. 
In his estimate of the practical alienation of mankind 
from the Father, he is conceived as the truth itself. Of 
course, his teaching in this regard would naturally be as 
unique as his character, and supremely important. 

It is remarkable that the great Teacher nowhere refers 
us back to the first man, by way of accounting for the 
evil that is in the world. On the contrary, he points us 
to the paradise of infancy for our instruction as to the 
reign of God. He blesses little children. " Of such is 
the kingdom of heaven." " Except ye be converted and 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." " Whosoever shall humble himself 
as this little child, the same shall be greatest in the 
kingdom, of heaven." " I thank thee, Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes." " Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings 
thou hast perfected praise." Yet the paradise of child- 
hood is not without its dangers. It is beset with evils. 
Not only are little ones, exposed in their weakness, liable 



200 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

to be despised and led into sin ; they are in danger of 
destruction. They are lost, without protection and guid- 
ance. Hence that gracious teaching in the eighteenth 
chapter of Matthew, of " their angels " that behold the 
face of the Father, — and of the Son, higher than all 
angels, coming to seek and to save them, since it is not 
the will of the Father " that one of these little ones 
should perish." 

The great Teacher brings Eden to every household. 
The story of Genesis alleges the perversion of man's 
action, while affirming the goodness of his original 
nature. It has been a fashion of later times to affirm 
the corruption of man's original nature, in order to 
account for the perversion of his action. The teaching 
of Jesus is in harmony with the teaching of Genesis. 
No spiritual corruption is charged upon the fontal crea- 
tion. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." The 
animal nature can neither transgress nor obey in the 
moral sense. " That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
The spiritual man, born from above but conditioned in 
the flesh, is recognized as not only liable to be more or 
less involuntarily subdued to the lower elements in which 
he works, but as in danger also of being more or less 
wilfully addicted to the same. Jesus would convert the 
man of low experience from the sophistries of the world 
to the sincerity of his original nature, in order to his 
receiving continual inspirations of divine truth, and 
so coming into spiritual communion with the Father. 
The Prodigal comes to himself that he may go to his 
Father. The Sun of righteousness pierces the blinding 
fogs that enshroud society, that the single-eyed and 
simple-minded child of humanity may awake to the 
fulness of light. 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 201 

Always in our Lord's ministry the appeal of the mira- 
cle, of the parable, of the exposition, allusion, action, 
is to faith, against unbelief as summing up all that is 
adverse to truth and goodness. By this sharp point 
of distinction, as it moves on from moment to moment 
in personal trial, is generated the line of separation 
between the predominance of light and the power of 
darkness, between godliness and worldliness, between 
the foregleams of immortality and the shadow of death. 
Christ makes nothing of old scores, except as past history 
enters into the present determination of duty or danger. 
Setting forth the conduct of his relentless adversaries, 
he says : " If I had not come and spoken unto them, 
they had not had sin." There can be no responsibility 
accruing from revelation that does not imply the plea 
of ignorance in palliation of temporary unbelief. That 
sin is exceeding sinful which declares itself as a volun- 
tary persistence in wrong, despite the persuasions of 
Truth and Love in behalf of the right. 

The Apostles, taking up the testimony of their Lord 
after his departure, were left in no doubt as to how 
far-reaching was His authority whose commission they 
bore. There were distinctions that had had their day. 
It was now declared that God was not the God of the 
Jews only, but of the Gentiles also. The Word of God 
was addressed to all nations, was to be proclaimed to 
every creature. All were called to be disciples. The elect 
were those who voluntarily obeyed the call and thus 
distinguished themselves from the unbelieving world, no 
matter from what nation, family, or caste, they might 
come. The reprobate people were the knowingly un- 
believing and disobedient, — no matter what worldly 
distinctions might be theirs. The King, who was the 



202 J^ATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

personal enshrinement of divine law, could recognize only 
this antithesis in the relations of men to himself. But 
the antithesis was not as yet absolute. There was no 
personal faith without its alloy of unbelief ; no personal 
unbehef without a potency of faith. Men were changing 
moment by moment. Society was changing. The dis- 
tinction of believers and unbelievers was not marked 
by any hard and fast line, but was moving according to 
free personal determinations. The process of change was 
invisible. The remote issues of the great regeneration 
were inscrutable. They were referred with equal awe 
and confidence to depths and riches of divine wisdom 
and knowledge — judgments unsearchable and ways past 
finding out. 

What the Apostles saw before them was simply the 
world, — the humanity of past efforts and accumulations, 
— out of which w^as slowly to be moulded the better 
world that was looming up in inspired imaginations and 
benevolent desires. They discriminated between the 
fashion of things that is passing away, even while claim- 
ing to hold out, and the law of things that is growing 
strong, even in the very souls that seem to resist it. 
They apprehended the difi'erence between the natural 
man, coming by ordinary generation, and the spiritual 
man, child of the life-giving Word ; and, consequently, 
the difference between universal humanity on the side 
of a common mortal nature, represented in Adam, and 
universal humanity on the side of its spiritual responsi- 
bility and personal heirship of God, represented by the 
Christ. 

It is impossible to hold up to view the better without 
accusing the worse ; impossible to call men to their 
Christian discipleship as the supreme good, without 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 203 

exposing the evil and danger of going on in old ways ; 
and it is important to remark that this was in fact the 
Apostolic way of finding fault with men and with the 
world. The Apostles addressed themselves to society 
as it was. They were not metaphysical or dogmatic; 
did not busy themselves with speculations tending to 
ground human error and transgression in a transcen- 
dental original sin; did not set themselves to nice 
discriminations of different degrees of personal responsi- 
bility or different shades of personal guiltiness ; but with 
magnificent comprehensiveness and impartiality they ap- 
pealed to the revelation of God's goodness, made more dis- 
tinct by the tokens of his severity, and represented the 
future apocalypse of evil as having its whole secret in 
misappreciation and resistance of offered blessings. 

St. Paul could account on natural principles for the 
first man's falling into sin, because he himself, under far 
greater light, and delighting in the law of God after 
the inward man, still found a law in his members war- 
ring against the law of his mind, which in kind is exactly 
what Adam was conceived to have found. But with a 
conscience more disciplined than that of humanity in its 
earliest moral experiment, St. Paul was learning not 
to confer with flesh and blood as to what concerns the 
fulfilling of a requirement which is above the sphere 
of physical law. As a spiritual man, he owned allegiance 
to the spiritual Word, and set himself to bring his body 
into subjection. 

As it was in the beginning, so now in St. Paul's day 
God's judgment upon man's conduct is conceived as 
inseparable from knowledge of the truth brought effec- 
tively to bear upon conscience for man's spiritual direc- 
tion. It was the prerogative of God to overlook the sin 



204 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of ignorance that he might correct it by the unfolding 
of law, and to watch the effect of unfolding law in order 
to vindicate it against unbelief and transgression by- 
proper tokens of his displeasure. Hence the postulate 
of the Epistle to the Eomans is that God can do no 
wrong. He judges the world and is judged of no power. 
Let God be true, though every man be found a liar. The 
gospel, in its application to men, was simply the expres- 
sion of a divine intention whose fulfilment had never 
lingered for one languid instant on the part of God. 
God's righteousness, the moral development of human 
nature, which God was seeking to realize through his 
Son, was from faith to faith, — from the faith of the 
past to the faith of the future ; according to the Scrip- 
ture which declares, " The just shall live by faith." Here 
is St. Paul's impregnable position and line of defence : 
" no replying against God." Impossible to understand 
or demonstratively to justify his ways ? It matters not. 
The revelation of his Son is the Father's vindication, 
whether as regards his economy of mercy or his edicts 
of judgment. Eefer everything to the Sovereign in so 
far as his dealings are beyond the range of the human 
understanding. Say that he hath mercy on whom he 
will ; say that whom he will he hardeneth, — since no 
moral reaction is independent of his law, — but let not 
the thing made call in question the Maker. Faith, not 
fatalism, however, is the element of reason with regard 
to the unsearchable things of God. Though the calling 
and election of God, as determining temporary distinc- 
tions among men and nations, cannot be accounted for 
on the ground of individual merit, yet, as to the great 
future, judgment does not anticipate trial. For all men 
the day is a day of salvation. 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 205 

The defensive motive and action in the Epistle to the 
Eomans is incidental. It comes out sharply in the fifth 
and sixth verses of the third chapter. It pervades the 
ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, where the appeal 
is to faith in the sovereign Wisdom, that the dangerous 
partialities and groundless pride, whether of Jews or 
Gentiles, may give way to a common submission and 
pious awe. But St. Paul would have no such occasion 
for a defensive vindication of the divine rectitude, were 
it not for the "sword of the Spirit," — the invading 
Word, which declares God's benevolent hostility to man's 
unrighteousness. The gospel of salvation is not with- 
out a necessary note of aggression ; and this meets us at 
the eighteenth verse of the first chapter : " For the wrath 
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness 
and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth 
in unrighteousness." And then follows, as far as to the 
twenty-first verse of the third chapter, a bold sketch 
of the evil to be overcome, in its actual details. 

The truth of God, affirmed in nature but turned into 
a lie in the popular idolatries, the shameful crimes, the 
odious sensualities, the unnatural and destructive self- 
abuse, the malignant dispositions of men in relation to 
their fellow-men, — these were not sins of ignorance 
alone ; they were offences against the natural conscience 
in every man, insults to the better sort of people who in 
a greater or less degree were showing the effect of God's 
law written in their hearts, outrages against precepts, 
laws, institutions, that contemplated the punishment of 
evil-doers and the honor of those that did well. In a word, 
the crying sins of the time were such as men would judge 
and condemn in others without even stopping to think how 
far they might themselves be implicated m the same. 



206 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

If the Gentiles were in a bad way, how was it with 
the Jews ? The Jews boasted of their law, and thought 
themselves able to instruct the unwise world. But 
what things their law said, it said to them that were 
under the law. Had the law no fault to find with Jews ? 
When had not the name of God been blasphemed among 
the Gentiles by reason of Jews ? Of Jews no more than 
of Gentiles could it be said that their moral habits were 
good enough, and should be let alone. It was plain, on 
the contrary, with regard to both, that the rudimentary 
moral discipline under which they had lived, far from 
leading them to the maturity of virtue, had brought 
them to the knowledge, if not to the acknowledgment, 
of sin. And if they were judged of their own consciences 
and their own laws as transgressors, much more must 
they find themselves to have come short of the moral 
glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ for the obedience 
of faith and the perfecting of life. On the other hand, 
supposing all men to have faithfully fulfilled the law of 
their being thus far, of what avail would be this foregone 
personal righteousness, if instead of perpetuating itself 
in more abundant fruits of good living, it should wither 
like a flower before the rising sun of a brighter day ? 

Therefore, unless the whole Apostolic persuasion about 
the Lord Jesus were a mistaken one, he, the Christ, was 
the end of law for the attainment of righteousness, 
whether as regards spiritual evil to be overcome or 
spiritual good to be realized. This simple issue the 
Apostles were pressing to a historic trial at every sacri- 
fice, even to that of life itself ; and the banner of their 
Leader w^as to be their sign of conquest in all the world, 
even to the end of the world-ages. To all men without 
distinction they said, Man's spiritual consummation was 



CHRISrS TEACHING. 207 

in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, not in a more 
or less scrupulous fulfilment of limited conceptions of 
law, that are themselves shadowy and transitory, but in 
spiritual communion with the Father, through whose 
only-begotten Son there is mediated a constant teaching 
of the eternal Spirit. This is the " living way ; " and, 
since the Word made man is the fulfilment of all previ- 
ous laws and prophecies, it is, relatively to the old dis- 
pensation, the " new [or recent] way." You, Jews, who 
would not receive your own proper Prince, you of the 
Gentile world, who have not recognized as yet the Lord 
and Master of life, — you have all come to that moral 
test according to which the divine government is pro- 
ceeding, and under which every man shall work out the 
practical demonstration of his own character, whether 
for weal or woe. 

There is no avoiding the significance of a standard. 
God's law is the truth. The truth of manhood cannot 
help vindicating the divine reality against the counterfeit 
presentment. The reign of divine law would cease were 
it to make terms with falsehoods and illusions. The 
whole world presents of necessity a relatively darker 
aspect of evil, the moment the heavenly reality con- 
ceived as salvation — development of life in communion 
with God — is held up to view. Then it begins to appear 
what unworthy contentment there is in men with things 
as they are, what powerful interests array themselves 
against changes that make for ultimate good but involve 
immediate suffering, and what violent resistance abound- 
ing sin offers to superabounding grace. The sign of the 
Son of Man is that all aspects of evil, all energies of 
self-will, all shades of prejudice, are for a time quickened 
in the human consciousness when he comes. He is 



208 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

content with no easy and barren victory. It is for him 
to struggle with the unbelief that dates from his testi- 
mony, — an unbelief more violent and more blameworthy 
than any which could meet an inferior witness. Yet 
divine justice recognizes the condition of unbelief as 
a plea in excuse for acts of unbelief. St. Paul is 
permitted to say, in view of his persecution of the 
church, "But I obtained mercy because I did it igno- 
rantly, in unbelief;" and St. Peter, speaking to men 
whom he charges with denying and killing the Prince 
of life, adds : " And now, brethren, I know that through 
ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those 
things which God before had showed by the mouth of 
all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he hath so 
fulfilled." 

Thus the faith of Christ is not only an ever-living 
persuasion of God as working in nature, but an ever-en- 
larging apprehension and deepening impression of uni- 
versal nature as God's workmanship. To this faith, as 
it speaks in the Scriptures, moral evil appears as an 
irrational factor, unavoidably incident to the voluntary 
working of imperfect moral agents in a process of devel- 
opment under stress of life's struggle, but disappearing 
when the consummation of personal being is reached. 
The disregard of right moral suggestion, through per- 
sonal ignorance or slowness of faith, is ever proving 
itself at length to be as foreign to the meaning and pur- 
pose of man's nature as it is to the teaching of inspired 
seers and prophets of God, who best interpret for their 
day the divine intention to which nature is evermore 
giving utterance. 

It might seem, at a moment of sudden conviction, 
as if the personal revelation of truth and love, in the 



CHRIST'S TEACHING. 209 

very fact of its divine authority, could admit of no 
deliberation or delay, and must drive men at once from 
the intermediary degrees of moral sentiment and ac- 
tion either to the utmost of devotion or to the extreme 
of revolt. But, foohsh and slow of heart, man does 
not so learn the meekness and gentleness of the Christ. 
The human dulness and inertia are not forgotten by 
him to whom the ages belong, and " who willeth that all 
men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the 
truth." Our weakness of apprehension, our immaturity 
of judgment, our lack of spiritual susceptibility, our pre- 
occupation with earthly things, our blindness to heavenly 
realities, — all these have to do not only with the dura- 
tion of our trial, but also with the thoroughness of our 
moral discipline. Our spiritual transformation is not 
held up as the miracle of an instant, but as the continu- 
ous experience in which we are of our own choice work- 
ers together with God. 

The principles of the animal and worldly life are ever 
in our mortal nature. The long-suffering of God, which 
we are taught to count as our salvation, takes into part- 
nership with itself the patient working, waiting, and 
suffering of man. The Scriptural conception of the 
world-history holds out no prospect of peace on earth 
except in the maintenance of the Christian warfare; 
calls to no sitting together in heavenly places but 
through the riches of a victorious yet still militant 
grace; predicts no Christian civilization that shall be 
proof against the inroads of barbaric rudeness and sen- 
suality ; announces no holy church that is not liable to 
degenerate into a practical denial of the Christ; and 
foreshadows no period of triumphant virtue that shall 
render impossible the outbreak of bold wickedness. In 

14 



210 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

the process of development the forms of good and evil 
are modified, but the relation of good and evil does not 
disappear. The historic world has many ages, but is of 
one kind. 

The reconciliation of all things in Christ is for the 
spiritual ages of divine revelation. Enough for those 
who bear the image of the earthly humanity, if with the 
Lord from heaven they can contribute their personal 
efforts and sacrifices to the consummation and bliss of 
the eternal society, according to the divine Law of 
Atonement. 



PART FIFTH. 



THE LAW OF ATONEMENT. 



'' Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall 
believe on me through their word: that they all may be one, as 
thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one 
in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." 

John xvii. 20, 21. 

" Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on 
my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my 
flesh for his body's sake, which is the church." 

COLOSSIANS i. 24. 

" Quod homo est, esse Christus voluit, ut homo possit esse quod 
Christus est." 

Cypeian, quoted by Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 177. 

"As there is one end to many things, so there spring from one 
beginning many differences and varieties, which again, through the 
goodness of God, and by subjection to Christ, and through the 
unity of the Holy Spirit, are recalled to one end, which is like 
unto the beginning." 

Origex, De Principiis, lib. i. c. vi. 



PAKT FIFTH. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT. 



CHAPTEE I. 

RECAPITULATION AND TRANSITION. 

^ I ^HE Scripture teaching, so far as we have been able 
-*■ to verify it, contemplates nature as one whole, and 
as partly known to us in conscious experience, while 
with our common knowledge is joined a movement of 
rational faith ; namely, the faith in one God, — the 
Cause of nature and the Source of man's moral disci- 
pline in the world. 

Without this faith, the suggestions, demands, and pro- 
phetic assurances of nature cannot be combined in a 
rational system of thought. But with this faith, not 
only can the teachings of nature be systematized, but 
the infinite Eeason working through nature is brought 
more and more into finite apprehension and action ; and 
in this way there can be a practical revelation of God in 
man. 

God's revelation of himself in man is found to be not 
only through primitive suggestions of divine agency and 
authority, but through continually renewed examples of 
personal faith and service, such as mark the progress of 
a spiritual creation in the history of our race, and point 



214 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

to one personal Eevelation, the Object and End of Scrip- 
ture testimony. 

Though the Scriptures have to do with the world's 
history as one whole, under one eternal direction, yet 
their representations are accommodated to the conscious 
moment and limited apprehension of the human mind. 
Indeed, that divine teaching is grounded in universal re- 
ality is proved by its finding expression in special facts ; 
for particular facts cannot be disengaged or dissected 
away from the organic whole to which they belong, nor 
can they be understood in an isolated or abstract con- 
ception of them. 

For example, the world's schooling is fact and experi- 
ence of the instant, and so is fact and experience of the 
ages. The error attributed to primitive humanity is rec- 
ognized as real and natural, because it is the error of 
mankind under all phases of tutelage. The righteous- 
ness of faith is ratified, reasonable, and acceptable for 
the moment, because it goes on to fulfil itself without 
limits of time. The sin of unbelief, on the other hand, is 
pardonable, curable, and temporal, as springing from the 
imperfect knowledge, partial judgment, and sensual appe- 
tite of the moment, which the order of nature is consti- 
tuted to overrule according to the creative intention. 

The elements of thought thus briefly recapitulated are 
elements of life. It is impossible to consider them with 
any degree of attention and not come to an awakening 
of the spirit with respect to some divine purpose and 
rational consummation towards which man is working 
his way. As the spontaneous development of nature is 
evermore asserting differences and antagonisms, so the 
universal government of nature is evermore composing 
these differences and antagonisms in a higher order. It 



RECAPITULATION AND TRANSITION. 215 

is in this way that the process of personal development 
on the part of man is made the medium of a personal 
revelation on the part of God, and that in the practical 
progress of revelation there appear tokens of a purpose, 
not only to overrule, but to rule out whatever obstructs 
man's communion with his Maker, and to make man 
perfect in faith, love, and practical loyalty. It is 
the working out of this reconciling purpose in history 
which gives expression to what we may call the law of 
atonement. 

A hard fate has befallen the word " atonement." It 
has fared worse, if possible, than " justification." It has 
been not only warped in the struggles of opinion, but 
colored according to vagaries of imagination ; while the 
more it has been bandied by parties, the more it has 
incurred the odium of a shibboleth with thinkers who 
prided themselves upon either their indifference or their 
catholicity. In the Eevised New Testament the word 
does not appear ; but it cannot be made to disappear 
from the records of religious thought. It deserves, 
therefore, to be redeemed from unnatural bondage and 
brought back to its original service. 

Eeconciliation, as between the Creator and his rational 
creatures, may signify a moral relation to be preserved, 
or a moral relation to be attained. In either case it can 
demand nothing more than perfect faith and obedience, 
and can be realized by nothing less. Milton's seraph 
Abdiel, " faithful found among the faithless," ^ is rep- 
resented as preserving his loyalty, and his peace with 
God, by continually renewed acts of duty in a career of 
unbroken communion. The Christ of the New Testa- 
ment stands forth as the Apostle and High Priest of 

1 Paradise Lost, b. v. 1. 896 et seq. 



216 NATURE IX SCRIPTURE. 

universal reconciliation, by preserving his own spiritual 
oneness with the Father, in that unswerving devotion 
which is the proper obedience of the Son. There can 
be no expiatory suffering incident to creaturely devotion 
that does not find its place in the infinitude of divine 
requirement; as there can be no divine requirement of 
sacrifice, which is not first of all proof of the Father's 
long-suffering in the creation and government of the 
worlds. It is He, who, through all the ritual of sacri- 
fice in nature is reconciling his worlds unto himself, — 
lifting the struggles of life under low and transitory 
conditions up into the higher service of spiritual eman- 
cipation. 

The word atonement contemplates the condition not of 
perfect beings, but of beings to be perfected. Is'ot only 
in systematic teaching but in ordinary speech it refers, 
if I am not mistaken, to motive, means, efforts, for the 
attainment of an end : and this end, whether conceived 
as attained or to be attained, is reconciliation with God, 
the Supreme Father, in a possible perfection and univer- 
sal harmony. * In the applications of detail, atonement 
refers especially to pains and sacrifices in the way of 
duty ; reconciliation, to joy and triumph in the approval 
and success of service done : atonement stands for the 
economy of the divine Goodness in subordinating uni- 
versal nature to the motive and service of love ; recon- 
ciliation is the harmony of spiritual beings in whom 
love is the fulfilling of law : atonement implies the 
necessary discipline of finite agents, in bringing them 
to be, intelligently and voluntarily, at one with God in 
his universal aim ; reconciliation implies the result of 
discipline which the Father aims to achieve in his whole 
familv. In fine, atonement declares that the world is 



RECAPITULATION AND TRANSITION, 217 

constituted for the development and trial of personal 
virtue, not for the exhibition of constitutional impecca- 
bility ; ^ while reconciliation holds out the promise that 
even material nature shall share in, and show forth, the 
glory of humanity redeemed from the bondage of error, 
and made free in the service of the Father. 

The law of atonement involves of necessity the rela- 
tion of moral agents to all law ; and is grounded in the 
eternal rectitude which forbids that one jot or tittle 
should in anywise pass from law until all be fulfilled. 
But there is the mark or sign of atonement, which 
brings to our rational recognition a universal method of 
the divine working; and it is this which must deter- 
mine and guide the inquiry before us. 

1 Turretin, following St. Augustine, says: ^^ Lihertas Adami fuit 
posse non ipeccarc" [Institutio Theologioe Elencticse, vol. i. p. 515.] 
Relatively to some limits of action unmistakably defined this may be ad- 
mitted ; but beyond such limits, and according to the notion that takes 
law to be nothing less than the divine intention for the entire moral 
contents and spiritual development of human nature, posse non peccare is 
not predicable of man's immature agency any more than is non posse 
peccare. The case admits of brief discussion with respect to its rational 
elements. Non posse peccare is properly predicated of the mere animal 
basis of human life, before the beginning of moral agency; and then it is 
practically identical with pi^sse non peccare. Either of the two phrases 
can stand for no more and no less than the other. Again, personal de- 
velopment under divine direction may be conceived as going on until the 
human spirit is brought into perfect communion with the divine Spirit ; 
and then posse non peccare is morally identical with non posse peccare. 
But between these two extremes there is logically an " excluded middle." 
From the point where the merely physical non posse peccare ceases to 
the point where the perfect spiritual posse non peccare begins, neither 
phrase, in any other than a relative sense, is a verifiable predicate of 
human agency. What is verifiable of man in this middle region, on the 
score both of his moral energy and of his spiritual imperfection, is given 
in the clear confession of St. Paul : "To will is present with me ; but 
to work out the good is not " (Eom. vii. 18). 



218 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

What redemptive and reconciling process is realized 
in nature ? AVhat is the law of thought and teaching 
concerning the same in Scripture ? 

We have not to seek any detail of analogies, such as 
might show the. teaching of Scripture to be open only to 
objections that could be urged with equal force against the 
system of nature. What our inquiry seeks is evidence 
of a universal intention and process of reconciliation re- 
vealed in nature and witnessed to in Scripture — a point 
of view from which things seemingly objectionable in 
detail should much rather appear to be indispensable 
upon the whole. All finite quantities are mathemati- 
cally zero in comparison with infinity. How then should 
anything be anything by itself, when actually the thing 
has no existence as it is separately conceived, and is 
real only as merging in the infinite reality to which it 
belongs ? Indeed it is only as we learn to know what 
addresses itself pointedly to our confined observation 
and momentary judgment as belonging to the unity of 
things, without limits of space or time, that we win our 
way in the faith of one eternal Word — God, with one 
qualitative equivalent — Love. 

ISTor, again, have we anything to do with those govern- 
mental schemes which represent to us a reign of God 
under the image and superscription of Csesar. Our 
movement is not in a sphere of limited legal judgments 
and compensatory legal fictions. " Imputation," " sub- 
stitution," " satisfaction,'' in the sphere of law, are signs 
which are liable to import what is essentially false, 
though intended to signify what is relatively true. For 
the present we will drop the pontifical phrases, leaving 
to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, in order that we 
may apprehend in their simplicity and sincerity the 



RECAPITULATION AND TRANSITION. 219 

things that are God's. Is not thought constituted to 
move in that universal reahn, which is physical creation 
and moral government in one ? Is it not in the unity 
of revelation that we are to find the wisdom of God, 
which can rebuke partial criticism and silence petty 
apology? Is it for us to take care that the divine 
government receive no detriment, in case the sins and 
sufferings of human beings are made subservient to the 
development of personal virtue, which is itself the sur- 
cease at length of sin and sorrow ? And what puerility 
of logical pleading is so depressingly trivial, as the fami- 
liar one of pointing out that the difficulty as regards a 
government of absolute perfection is one and the same, 
whether evil be the disciplinary bitterness of a day, or 
the war and wail of endless duration ? It must be dis- 
tinctly premised, therefore, that, for the purpose of the 
present study, punishment is the expression of divine dis- 
pleasure against the guilty, — not legal satisfaction for 
guilt. On the other hand, suffering in the divine econ- 
omy, far fi'om having any necessarily punitive character, 
may be the unavoidable incident of an effort tliat is to 
achieve an infinitely preponderating good. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT IN ITS PHYSICAL TYPE. 

/^UE first effort shall be to get a clear conception of 
^^ the law of atonement in its physical type. 

The whole order of material nature is one whose har- 
mony is in the reconcihation of differences and the 
adjournment of conflicts. We are often told '.of an ob- 
trusive contrast between the physical economy and the 
spiritual economy, as regards the reconciliation of dis- 
cords. Material nature is held up as the realm of unre- 
lenting law, equally remote from any thought of pity or 
hint of hope to the transgressor, whether his offence be 
wilful or accidental. In the pulpit and through relig- 
ious publications, how often have high authorities used 
all their eloquence to impress upon the popular imagi- 
nation and judgment the idea that physical nature is the 
antithesis rather than the type of redeeming effort, such 
as is revealed in the gospel of our spiritual salvation. 
It is amply set forth that if we suffer shipwreck we shall 
be drowned ; if we are caught asleep in a burning house 
or amidst the fumes of charcoal, we shall suffer the natu- 
ral consequences ; if we take poison, we can count upon 
the poison to work on in its ordinary way ; if we fall 
from a height, or if something falls from a height upon 
us, we cannot escape our exact due of injury. For the 



ATONEMENT IN ITS PHYSICAL TYPE. 221 

sake of a special argument, all-reviving and all-restoring 
nature, which the sentient creation loves, is ungraciously 
construed in a sense exactly contrary to the general ten- 
dency of things. Nature is charged with being as mer- 
ciless to transgressors, irrespective of their intentions, as 
she is propitious to those who obey her laws, irrespec- 
tive of their intentions ; and it is not always added 
that the seeming cruelty is in order to the greater 
kindness. 

But because nature rebukes lawlessness, are we un- 
reconciled to nature? Because nature taxes life in 
detail for the salvation of life in general, do we put our- 
selves in permanent conflict with nature ? On the con- 
trary, we try to be reconciled to nature in active obe- 
dience ; and so far as this is found to be impossible we 
submit to be reconciled in suffering. As a rule, we do 
not suffer shipwreck, or perish in burning houses, or 
come to our death by the sudden action of poison ; or, if 
we do, our suffering is for the safety of all who know 
how to take warning from our fate. The faith in which 
we are rationally reconciled to nature is that the infinite 
firmness of law in the constitution of things is one with 
the infinite fervor of love in the administration of things. 
If the service which matter and motion fulfil in the 
physical order are too important to yield to the momen- 
tary comfort and convenience of individuals, and so inju- 
ries take place which, with all her pains, nature is not 
constituted to heal except by the panacea of death ; is it 
according to the higher nature of man to grudge the sac- 
rifice and rebel against necessity ? Or, rather, seeing the 
body quietly reassimilated to the congenial earth, does 
not the spirit of man tend to the persuasion that it shall 
prolong its days in higher recognition and enjoyment of 



222 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

the divine economy that can so graciously use and dis- 
tribute the sufferings inseparable from the attainment of 
infinite good ? 

At any rate, the simple fact is that we are members 
one of another. We live and die, not unto ourselves 
alone, but unto our kind and unto our Creator. Nature 
is constituted to exact the sacrifice of atonement in the 
temporary efforts and sufferings of the few, that the life 
of reconciliation and harmony may be more abundantly 
enjoyed by the many. In the persistency of this sacri- 
ficial law we find the security and conservation of all 
life here below. Because the laws of nature are too sure 
of their meaning to remit their appropriate exactions, the 
pupils of nature become studiously obedient. They not 
only work out their salvation from natural evils, but, 
what is much more important, they do this in a way 
to develop just such habits of attention and loyalty as 
will avail them in working out their welfare under the 
spiritual economy. 

'^OY in this subjection to the law of sacrifice is life to 
be looked upon as for the most part servile and passive. 
If the creative hand reaches through nature in order to 
mould men to their proper obedience, the same power 
reaches equally through men in order to mould material 
nature into closer conformity with man's developed 
thought and desire. Nature endows man with the lib- 
erty of her laws ; and so the laws of nature become the 
charter under which man rules and redeems those parts 
of nature over which he presides. Docility and intelli- 
gence on our part win nature to our will, so that nature 
yields herself to our service in regenerate forms and 
richer products. 

Knowing that we are to try conclusions with the 



ATONEMENT IN ITS PHYSICAL TYPE. 223 

storm, we learn how to build our ships. Aware that we 
niust be ruled by compass and chart, or else ruled by 
rocks and shoals, we master the laws and catch the 
auguries of navigation. The conquest of vast and resist- 
less elements is grand and stimulating in proportion to 
the risks taken in seemingly blind paroxysms of fury 
into which the elements are sometimes thrown. And 
when physically conquered, there is a certain inspiration 
of his Maker in man, by which he looks beyond nature 
as if the supernatural were ever his real home. He 
seems to be overcome indeed, but only by the restless- 
ness of matter under the divine energy, through which 
all nature exists, — and exists for the sake of man as 
heir and ruler of the realm. 

Is it the decree of nature that the unsightly and 
unhealthy marsh shall forever resist the progress of hus- 
bandry, and mar the beauty of its neighborhood ? On 
the contrary, nature shall yield the offending part to the 
service and to the taste of man, as soon as man shall 
make the sacrifice necessary for its redemption. To 
drain, grub, burn, plough, and fertilize, — this is the toil 
and sacrifice of atonement. By this means the displeas- 
ing locality is reconciled. The intractable becomes the 
genial ; the foul is turned into the beautiful ; the injuri- 
ous and obstructive is changed to the harmonious and 
useful. 

Whenever the experience of man opens his mind to 
those respects in which he can mould nature into har- 
mony with himself, and man takes up the instruments 
of intelligent toil to subdue the earth, the earth's reac- 
tion is in the way of reconcihation. Eesistance is over- 
come. The wilderness and the solitary place are glad. 
Deserts rejoice and blossom as the rose. Pastures are 



224 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

clothed with flocks, and valleys are covered over with 
corn. The mountains and hills break forth into singing, 
and the trees of the field clap their hands. 

Inaccessible heights, everlasting snows, and the most 
dangerous seas are gTadually brought into the unity and 
harmony of thought. It is ascertained in what way they 
are necessary and ser^-iceable, as well as sublime or 
beautiful. They are found to exist according to a con- 
stitution of the globe in mysterious harmony with the 
constitution of its inhabitants. The more deeply the 
elements of nature are penetrated, the more thorough 
and comprehensive is the reconciliation of thought and 
things. The jury of finite intelligences to which the 
Creator has entrusted a certain trial of his works is 
ever rendering a spontaneous verdict of faith in their 
goodness, though ever remote from the comprehension of 
their infinite design. 

In what concerns the economy of life in the physical 
sense, the law of sacrifice in a process of reconciliation 
and redemption is at once striking and universal. There 
is no preservation of life but at the cost of life. In 
earth, air, and water, the redemption of all lining things 
from cunning and violence in quest of blood is at the 
price of blood. Life pays for hfe. The destruction of 
a few, comparatively, in every species secures for the 
moment immunity from death to the many ; at the same 
time enforcing the instinctive caution and acti^dty that 
make up the enjoyment of existence during its natural 
term. One species preys upon another ; but there is the 
enormous vegetable growth offered from year to year for 
the support of animal life, and so the hostile tribes abide 
in a comparatively peaceful society. Always animal life 
is immensely in excess of the consumption of animal life. 



ATONEMENT IN ITS PHYSICAL TYPE. 225 

The ever-recurring pursuit and flight does not threaten 
the survival of kinds, in a vast preponderance of living 
specimens as compared with the slain ; while only by a 
continual sacrifice is the equilibrium preserved between 
different orders of living things and their natural re- 
sources of nourishment. Instincts of parents and off- 
spring, natural economies of protection, all efforts that 
make us recognize the patterns of intellectual and moral 
action in the brute creation, are due to the struggle as well 
as to the constitution of life. To enjoy life is to expend 
life. Throughout the innumerable ranks of sentient 
creatures, the truth holds that to save existence in slug- 
gish or cowardly retirement is to lose life. One moment 
of awakening terror is ecstasy of life, compared with lin- 
gering decay. If life be good, then is death also good, 
which, by limiting individual existence, secures collec- 
tive persistence. Be it active destruction or natural de- 
cay that works out the beneficent result, the orders of 
living things are made to be at one with each other, — 
to be at one with inanimate nature, in a common posses- 
sion of life, only through death. 

The same law is most strongly marked in the relation 
of man to the lower animals. To distinguish, to name, 
to subjugate, the creatures of brute intelligence, is a 
work of danger and sacrifice proportioned to its interest 
and importance. The triumph and rule of man is not 
without cost both to himself and the subject races. To 
live and let live is a law of reconciliation which is never 
administered except with the incidental offering up of 
life. Peace is at the price of war. Offence and defence 
afford the temporary exercise which will ensure the suc- 
ceeding repose. For men to combine against wild beasts 
is to enter upon the labors of peace and civil order with 

15 



226 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

respect to each other. Take away resistance, and prog- 
ress is no more. 

And then, in domestication, animals become the wil- 
ling servants and companions of man. They profit by 
their dependence, as man profits by his control. They 
are slain for food; they are sacrificed in witness of a 
spiritual faith, and thus denote the homage paid to the 
Creator of all ; yet, upon the whole, their life is made 
better by being subjected to higher life. The choice victim 
predestined to secure by its own death the exemption of 
others of its race from the claim of sacrifice, is for its day 
the most cherished of the flock. So, too, the kinds that 
furnish man not only nourishment for the body, but means 
of expressing his spiritual desire to honor and propitiate 
the Lord of all, are most highly prized. It is remarkable 
that the law of eating and drinking among men has 
held a permanent relation to the law of sacrifice in the 
offices of worship, exactly as the law of physical nourish- 
ment holds a constant relation to the law of spiritual 
duty. What is necessary and most agreeable in the 
economy of man's hfe seems most fit to determine his 
offerings to the Author of life, — on whom all depend, 
but whom man alone of creatures, on behalf of all, is 
moved to thank and to supplicate. 

Indeed, we cannot forget the extreme to which hu- 
manity has been carried in the sacrifice of human 
victims on behalf of the collective life. It required 
the recoil from mistaken immolation to teach that 
obedience, involving its necessary sacrifices, — not sac- 
rifice irrespective of obedience, — is the way of spiritual 
reconciliation to supreme authority. But what won- 
der, if, in the midst of a universal economy of sacrifice, 
no creature, living or dying in its own interest merely, 



ATONEMENT IN ITS PHYSICAL TYPE. 227 

man should think it a not unpromising service to wor- 
ship the Source of life in an exemplary surrender of 
life ? How could it be certain that a more satisfactory- 
career for survivors might not be purchased at a vica- 
rious cost, and the rights of the victim be safe with the 
Divinity to whom the victim was devoted ? At any rate, 
the law of atonement in its physical type is clear, terri- 
bly as man may have erred in attempting to interpret 
the divine requirement of w^hich it is the expression. 
Nature is right in what God intends her to teach ; but 
it is a long work for man, through nature, to be taught 
of God. 

One thing appears indisputable, namely, that through- 
out the course of nature there rules a law of atonement, 
in the continual reconciliation of differences by means 
of appropriate sacrifices. The inanimate earth is re- 
deemed to the service of living beings at a sacrifice. 
Living beings are adjusted to their natural term of life 
by spontaneous efforts that have by and by exhausted 
the vital energy. Life in lower species pays tribute to 
life in higher species. In fine, all creatures, up to man 
himself, live and die in unconscious but necessary hom- 
age to one creative Power, — who is in all, through all, 
over all. The reconciliation of all beings with each 
other is their common subjection to creation's law. The 
bringing of things into harmony and oneness by service 
and sacrifice, voluntary or involuntary, is the rule of 
nature, — not the exception. It is not a mystery of 
detail to be referred to a system; it is the note of a 
universal system accounting for all difficulties of detail, 
— the law by which all things consist. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 

npHE physical law of atonement is the type of a spir- 
-*- itual procedure. 

How shall man, as the rational representative of sub- 
ject nature, conceive and express the subjection of his 
own mind and will to the Author of being ? The dif- 
ference between God, the absolute Truth and Love, and 
man, ignorant and self-seeking, — by what sacrifice can it 
give place to an assured communion and oneness of man 
with God ? The Example and Legislator of man's spir- 
itual reconciliation with the infinite Spirit, — has he 
appeared ? What is his word ? 

Material nature is outward, of the senses. Eevelation 
is inward, of the spirit. But the outward and the in- 
ward exist as one ; and the revelation of God makes use 
of material nature in order to have its way in the human 
spirit. We may say, generally, that in creation the 
Eevealer determines organic laws and sensible limits of 
outward phenomena, in order to furnish the medium 
and symbols of an interior communication. God, the 
Prime-mover, is thus the Supernatural by relation with 
the natural, the divine by relation with the human, — 
the Eevealer, the Eedeemer, the Saviour, in virtue of a 
spiritual effort and causation in man's history, such as 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 229 

these appellations indicate. The postulate of revelation 
is that the Creator subjects spirits to their outward con- 
ditions in order to complete his work by making out- 
ward conditions the means of teaching, strengthening, 
and perfecting spirits in the communion of divine truth 
and life. No kingdoms of this world but for the sake 
of the spiritual reign of God. No ages of vanity and 
dissolution, but that they may furnish some elements 
of immortality to powers whom their Creator will not 
leave to decay. No antithesis of God and the adversary 
of God, of God and the world, or of God and man, which 
does not signify a synthesis — a reconciliation ; as ap- 
pears from the fact that divine revelation is effectively 
carried on only by causing the reason and will of God to 
prevail over the limitations and misdoings of ignorant 
men. 

Therefore, whatever the revelation of God may by and 
by have done with nature, we know the revelation now 
only as having to do with nature. The divine Spirit is 
working in human history, and passing into ever-new 
expression through the decay and regeneration of soci- 
ety. It is only because God is working through nature 
that he can be apprehended in nature. No particle of 
the outward universe can be taken away from the divine 
Spirit, whose living temple is man. The divine testi- 
mony is not confined to any cycle of miracles ; it is in 
the whole course of nature. But the distinguishing 
mark of revelation is in the spiritual law which governs 
its special organs, through which they become guides 
and judges of their fellow-men. 

It is evident that there is no sacred history, so called, 
which is not part and parcel of a larger reality, — uni- 
versal history. There is no holy nation which does not 



230 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

emerge from, hold commerce with, work for, and pass 
into, the common humanity. There is no elect agent or 
typical epoch of divine teaching but appears in natural 
relation both with the common order and the universal 
aim of God's creation. If the human family, needing a 
man chosen and called of God, be naturally employed 
in bringing such a man into bounds of time and condi- 
tions 'of being, the man of God shall not fail to make his 
calling and election sure, by impressing his own spiritual 
motive and character upon the men of his day for a tes- 
timony to those who shall come after them. If the man 
of the divine idea and spirit be conceived as the first- 
begotten of the Father, the mediatorial Prince, the per- 
sonal type of human perfection, and as such the organ 
and prophecy of universal regeneration ; then it follows, 
from the very postulate of his pre-eminence, that other 
men are but imperfectly prepared to understand him or 
to believe in him. The difficulties he shall surmount 
are one measure of the triumph he shall achieve. The 
fulfilment of his office, — the reconciliation of all to 
the truth, mediation ending in universal communion, — 
this implies not merely the service of the Teacher, but 
the discipline of every learner in the school of personal 
responsibility. 

Looking at the history of mankind with reference to 
its spiritual facts, as distinguished from its physical phe- 
nomena, we find that the law of reconciliation by means 
of sacrifice pervades the whole domain ; while the Scrip- 
ture testimony is concerned with that advancing light, 
culminating in a fulness of personal revelation, in which 
the same law is pre-eminently magnified and made hon- 
orable. Hence, the whole spiritual progress of our race, 
quite irrespective of any specially inspired interpretation 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 231 

of the same, is the proper field of inquiry as to the law 
of our redemption from error, and our sanctification in 
the truth. One would willingly know if there is any 
canon of reason or of art that can give a human being 
the nimbus of the saint, except in consideration of his 
having personally borne, in his own degree, the cross of 
the martyr. 

The unity of history depends upon the development 
of differences for the sake of reconciliation upon a higher 
basis of mutual service and general harmony. Physical 
law, as we have already seen, is a law of atonement, 
not without sacrifice. But the cosmical rule deals very 
gently with our sensibilities. The tree absorbs its own 
elements from earth and air ; and not until leaves and 
fruit fall to the ground are we reminded of what the tree 
has to pay back. Inorganic matter and the grower's art 
must have their dues. But when we contemplate all 
the units of personal intelligence, conscience, and will, 
that are summed up in the world's moral movement, we 
are instantly impressed with a sense of cost and pains 
in the composition and reconciliation of numberless indi- 
vidual energies, every one being constitutionally deter- 
mined to take its own line. 

To reconcile growing spirits to the vast intention of 
their Creator would seem to involve no slight outlay on 
their part, were eacli one treated with reference to him- 
self alone. As we are made, the least part of the cost 
of personal progress is the exhaustion of physical re- 
sources, — the whole organism through which sensation 
is brought in for the training of judgment being destined 
to expend its resources in due proportion whether to 
their use or their abuse. This would simply enforce 
the costly spiritual endeavor to apprehend the genuine 



232 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

object for which all sacrifices should properly avail. It 
is not an easy and spontaneous action so to use the 
things that are passing out of hand as to secure the 
qualities most worthy of continued being, in merely a 
personal experience. But we are creatures of a complex 
society. There is a vaster if not superior life, — a col- 
lective, pre-existent, and surviving humanity, which is 
constituted not only to produce, but also to control and 
dispose of, individual existence. Our Creator has deter- 
mined our dependence upon our kind, and required our 
service to the race. A man is an effect with reference 
to his becoming a cause. 

Inasmuch, therefore, as the individual man is of 
society, and through society, and to society, he becomes 
a possession and, if need be, a sacrifice to the family, the 
tribe, the nation, the race, and finally to the Creator of 
all, in working out the universal glory and joy. His 
faculties are made up with due regard to his relations. 
Personal duty, no matter how costly, is of infinite prom- 
ise to the personal agent, with respect both to his own 
possible survival of all sufferings, and to the unending 
efficiency of his conduct in the being of others. The 
personal career and interest of every one enters into the 
idea of any one's moral accountability and retributive 
experience. Let a man live or die for his kind, let 
a patriot fight or perish for king and country, let a 
martyr sacrifice himself for his testimony, — is the 
loss on the part of the sufferer alone, and not on the 
part of the humanity and Divinity for whom he suffers ? 
And the gain, — is that for those who inherit the im- 
mediate or remote effects of sacrifice under the govern- 
ment of God, to the exclusion of the vicarious sufferers, 
through whose good offices the gain ensues ? Break the 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 233 

vital connection of men with one another and with the 
Father of all, and the bond of human obligation is bro- 
ken. But grant us to be members in particular of a 
universal family, and the inevitable effect is that, if one 
member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or if one 
member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. 
Not that this effect is of necessity a matter of immediate 
consciousness ; it ensues in the administration of eternal 
law. 

Is there wonder, then, at the abounding expenditure 
of life, and not much more wonder at the superabound- 
ing development and improvement of hfe, in which the 
cost is accounted for ? Is there scandal and complaint 
on the score of savage violence, desolating wars, barba- 
rous civil and military punishments, and fiendish perse- 
cutions of religious faith ; and may we not rationally 
ask if that system of sacrifice can be denounced as upon 
the whole practically excessive, which comes to a neces- 
sary mitigation of its horrors exactly in proportion as 
man is brought on to better principles and nobler habits 
of living ? Is the cost too great of redeeming society 
from its primitive rudeness to its better soul ? Not to 
redeem it is the greater cost ; and the price of well- 
being must needs have been paid, or how should we 
appreciate the good to which we have attained ? 

Not by beautiful reasons and fine phrases, but through 
the actual struggles out of which speech is struck, must 
the ignorant get their schooling from the better in- 
structed. A pains-taking master must lift up to the 
level of his own efforts a pains-taking pupil. The strong 
can help the weak, not chiefly by an eloquent and pleas- 
ing address, but by bearing the burdens and feeling the 
resistance of the weak ; till the weak are made strong 



234 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

with much trouble to themselves, and the strong are 
made stronger, not only by trial of their own powers, 
but by the strength they have treasured up in those 
who before were unable to help themselves. With what 
infinite patience, then, must God bear the burdens of all 
finite beings, while educating them to be workers to- 
gether with him! 

Is there any exchange of services, however small, but 
implies an overcoming of obstacles and a reconciling of 
differences in effecting the exchange ? The commerce of 
neighbors and friends, — is it carried on without a cer- 
tain degree of cautious self-interest, a little conflict of 
personal judgments ? But how shall strange or hostile 
peoples become neighbors and friends, when each is hold- 
ing out a temptation to the ambition or cupidity of the 
other, and neither likes the difficulty and delay of nego- 
tiation when an affair can- be more neatly accomplished 
by force ? The intellectual and moral assimilation of 
masses is apt to be preceded by violent collisions. Ex- 
ternal conditions and prejudices of habit have to be 
shaken by wasteful warfare, that the combatants may 
rise to higher things through a preliminary trial — short, 
sharp, and decisive. Tribes that own a certain affinity 
of blood do not come to their sense of spiritual oneness 
so long as they are fighting out their natural differences. 
But when the opinionated and predetermined fight of 
seeming good has been fought, it remains to fight the 
good fight of faith according to the actual situation. 
Material weapons are laid aside, that the spiritual strug- 
gle may have freer play and reach a more satisfactory 
result. 

The great chapters of history, which we learn to read 
by their titles, — do they give us any ages of culture 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 235 

and refinement that were not proud to own their in- 
debtedness to times of heroism and suffering ? And 
how long is poetic art or philosophic reflection allowed 
to hold its own against invaders ready to disperse the 
treasures accumulated, if society be unready for new sac- 
rifices in their defence ? Alexander cannot master the 
world without Aristotle ; nor Aristotle without Alexan- 
der. But when Greek thought marches in the might 
of conquering armies, enters the gates of captured cities, 
founds new seats of empire and of learning, dictates the 
language of enhghtened policy and superior culture, then 
the wisdom of the West combines with the faith of the 
East. The Hebrew Scriptures in the Greek language 
become the riches of the world. Moses and the proph- 
ets had to take gifts from the Greeks in preparing, the 
way of the hving Word; while Eoman aggression and 
domination made the way into a highway with incalcula- 
ble expenditure of life, before the supreme Pontiff and 
Prince of Peace could proceed upon his career of sacrifice 
and triumph. 

Human experience is a ritual of sacrifice, voluntary 
and involuntary, through which conflicting interests and 
powers are brought into accord under one divine control. 
The ritual is determined, sustained, directed, by the crea- 
tive governance. Nothing can be offered to the Author 
of being which is not already his. All victims are pro- 
vided by him, whether for the nourishment of bodies 
or the redemption of souls ; and his are the sufferings 
through which his children pass from blind conflicts of 
error to the reign of righteousness, peace, and joy. The 
kingdom of common intelligence, commerce, and law is 
a kingdom that suffereth violence ; and the violent take 
it by force. Conflict is before order. The more impor- 



236 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

tant the interests at stake in the apprehension of con- 
tending parties, the more fierce the struggle, the more 
bloody the sacrifice by which the final composition will 
be bought ; and, presumably, the last ruliug will be upon 
the whole beneficent in proportion to the cost of arriving 
at it. Men force their way from anarchy to liberty by 
contending stoutly for what they hold to be right ; and 
any custom or statute long held in respect will be un- 
settled at much risk, even for the purpose of fulfilling its 
original spirit. The literal law is most nervously exact- 
ing, whether as regards observance or penalty, just before 
it is to pass away ; and then the prophet of fulfilment 
has his great hour, if he be ready to sacrifice himself for 
the real law, against erroneous constructions. All ages 
are to him who is wanting to no claim, whether of the 
future or of the past. 

Besides, the fulfilling of law does not avoid the con- 
flict of laws. The motives of duty are complex. There 
are claims, each seemingly authoritative in itself, that 
are not easily reconciled with each other. The consci- 
entious judgment oscillates sensitively, and cannot settle 
itself to one direction except by a determination, possibly 
very painful, to sacrifice the lower to the higher require- 
ment. The claims of family, of country, of humanity, of 
Divinity, — who is sufficient for such a hierarchy of ob- 
ligations, if the lower appear to be not in practical 
coincidence with the higher ? The supreme Love is 
indeed the whole law ; but the sacrifice of faith in God, 
obedience to divine inspiration as the fulfilment of all 
devotion, is not easy, when the self-surrender implies the 
denial of all that common affection holds dear. Yet 
God's perfect revelation in man is possible a 'priori only 
in conjunction with man's perfect faith in God. Given a 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 237 

man perfectly receptive, and God, by the perfection of 
his being, is perfectly communicative. In such a man the 
divine and human are not in antithesis, but in synthesis, 
— the divine possessing the human, the human possessed 
of the divine. In such a man there could be no distrac- 
tion of duties ; since the supreme Love would be in him 
the reconciliation and satisfaction of all claims. Heir of 
the eternal Eectitude he could submit to no limitation 
of his moral authority, as he could know no decay of 
spiritual life. Temporary obstruction could import to 
him no permanent failure, premature and formal sub- 
mission no genuine success. As the example of right- 
eousness calling all to his standard, yet declining to be 
hailed as chief by men as yet alien to his rule, it would 
be for him to move in the majesty of his moral testi- 
mony and in the energy of his spiritual influence, till 
all men should be his willing disciples and subjects. 
Meanwhile how could he achieve this progress and tri- 
umph among men, but by bearing their ignorance and 
perversity, and so revealing, as teacher, priest, ruler, the 
perfection of truth and power in the perfection of pa- 
tience and mercy? How, in a word, should not the 
perfect service offer the perfect sacrifice ? 

Now, apart from the Scriptures, in which the gospel 
is specifically proclaimed, we have a testimony to Jesus 
in the natural progress of human society. The sign of 
the Christ in history, his attribute in art, his ideal in 
thought, his appeal to emotion, — these belong to him 
naturally, because he came into the course of nature. 
Ko special testimony could avail without this natural 
corroboration. The man Jesus has an eminence and 
authority in the world not scrupulously configured to 
the testimony of his apostles, or to the teaching of his 



238 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

church, — an attention and veneration freely accorded 
to him, through whatever medium he may present him- 
self to men's minds. That he was a man unhesitating 
in his persuasion and utterance of the truth ; that he 
evinced his faith in God through the power of an 
ohedient and submissive piety, speaking and doing the 
things of the Father ; that he shed upon the world a 
light too pure for selfish policy or conventional success ; 
that still he atoned for the transcendent character of his 
ministry by freely subjecting his claims to laws and 
judgments of the world's routine, thus sanctioning tem- 
porary condescensions and just sacrifices as an indispen- 
sable feature in the method of reconciling the lower to 
the higher purpose ; that he became the Exemplar and 
Founder of a faith through which alone the personal 
communion and consummation of mankind was held by 
him to be possible ; and that this faith contemplated 
nothing less than the regeneration of humanity, and in- 
cidentally the regeneration of outward nature, through 
a spiritual ministration mediated by its Author from 
age to age, — all this has entered into the disinterested 
thought and sentiment of many generations, and become 
matter of recognition and representation on the part of 
thousands upon thousands, who were not careful to call 
themselves Christians, or whose discipleship was an afiair 
of ordinary discipline rather than of high spiritual aspi- 
ration. Literature, art, philanthropy, civil government, 
military enterprise and administration, professional eth- 
ics, habits of society and personal conscience, have been 
so quietly penetrated and colored by the influence of 
Jesus, that vast multitudes are by no means ready in 
referring his qualities and conceptions to their source ; 
or, possibly, the remote example is disowned out of an 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 239 

overweening regard for self-development. The force 
that, according to the New Testament, invades and over- 
comes the world in "the incarnate Word," is resolved 
into a general potency of creative thought moving in the 
direction of fine ideals, without reference to any authen- 
tic image of the Father as the pattern of our ultimate 
glory and virtue. 

This spiritual infiltration of Christianity, which, pass- 
ing beyond those who have owned their allegiance to 
Jesus as King of men, penetrates the whole movement 
of society, is important as showing the intellectual and 
moral vicinage of his more effective supremacy. It in- 
structs us as to what elements and proportions of the 
Christ's teaching are suited to take possession of society, 
without much force of outward authority or special prop- 
agandism. ]^ay, it even intimates to us what law of 
faith prevails by the very constitution of the human 
mind, in spite of the often injudicious and injurious 
zeal of those who profess and call themselves Christians. 
The constitutional sway of Jesus among men not his 
declared adherents is indicated in a general uplifting of 
thought, effort, and hope, above the necessities and grati- 
fications of the moment ; in a changed conception and 
treatment of the present existence, growing out of a be- 
lief or doubt inseparable from the very idea of a future 
life. We are here to work out what we justly desire, 
not to receive it otherwise, not to attain it at once. 
We are here, not to be always saving our individual 
lives, but to accept and encourage the bestowment of 
life that cannot be saved in the interest of life that 
ought not to be lost. It is ours, not to grudge the sac- 
rifices we are called upon to make, but to rejoice in the 
good our offerings may win ; not to despair of those no 



240 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

longer seen, but to await the manifestation of the sons 
of God ; not to be forever chanting a tedious threnody 
over human mortality and sorrow, but rather to cheer 
the march and fight of transitory existence with songs of 
hope, in anticipation of life that shall turn the sufferings 
of a day into permanent peace and joy. This elevation 
of life, belonging to the whole world of mankind, as the 
tidal wave belongs to the ocean, is the natural response 
of human society to ideas and motives that find their 
highest expression in the Christ. 

In passing, the thought suggests itself that it is partly 
because the spiritual Eevelation is through nature, and 
according to the law of nature, that many have supposed 
it to be of nature. They have their apology. They pre- 
fer to construe nature as including the unknowable en- 
ergy, rather than to believe that a personal Creator is, or 
can be, accredited in nature. This is one mode of the 
antithesis of partial knowledge and universal reason. It 
represents the attitude of an unsatisfied agnosticism, as 
against the rational conception of faith. Faith takes in 
a range of life from the infinite Father to the flowers of 
the field, and insists that a universal moral order cannot 
be physically developed from below, unless it be ration- 
ally determined and constituted from above. The tes- 
timony 'of the historic church, despite the conflicts of de- 
tail, is that creation is of God, through the divine Word, 
the Christ of the Scriptures, unto all men, to the end 
that all men joined together in the faith of the Christ, 
and living unto God in love, may be turned betimes 
from unreasonable absorption in lower objects of desire, 
to find their eternal satisfaction in Him from whom they 
came. Here is the circle, not of a vicious logic, but of 
a real creation, wherein nature is evermore proceeding 



ATONEMENT IN GENERAL HISTORY. 241 

from and returning to its Author ; only in such a way 
that physical necessities and social obligations are made 
to serve the ends of personal education. The church in 
all ages is properly against the rest of the world only in 
order that all men may be brought into peaceful com- 
munion with their Maker ; and the Scriptures of the 
church are distinguished from other honest records of 
human experience, not by the intrusion of any power 
or principle foreign to nature, but by the clearer and 
mightier expression, through all stages of divine commu- 
nication, till we come to the divine Man, of what is the 
meaning and law of universal being. 

The method of divine teaching is practical. The 
Scriptures have the ground of their coherency in a 
real history, their complete significance in a real man. 
They are the revised, re-edited, and strikingly illustrated 
teachings wherein nature is set forth as universally 
moved by the divine Spirit ; they culminate in a human 
enshrinement of the divine character; they record a 
unique and perfect crisis of personal condescension, de- 
votion, and self-sacrifice ; they testify to the consummate 
filial obedience of One who is Son of God and Son of 
man, to the service which is all-satisfying and all-avail- 
ing, to righteousness without fiction and without flaw, 
to a human perfection which cannot be more and can- 
not be less, — a qualitative completeness in the love of 
the Father. If the Scriptures bear witness in such sort 
to the love of God, we look to find them true to the 
inmost and utmost reality of nature. 



16 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT IN SCRIPTURE HISTORY. 
PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 

'T^HE Scriptures do not advise us that we have great 
-*- need of collateral testimonies in our efforts to un- 
derstand them. On the contrary, they set up a per- 
emptory claim to speak for themselves. Happily, we 
can hardly mistake their general drift, however great 
may be our lack of particular knowledge. 

Especially as regards the law of atonement we have 
to do, not with any clever handling of symbols or lucky 
coincidences of phraseology, but with successive exam- 
ples from life, whether the type of experience repre- 
sented to us belong to the antediluvian, patriarchal, or 
national period. Our appeal is " to the law and to the 
testimony." ^ 

Again, happily, the Scriptures represent, not an in- 
spiration holding itself aloof from the feeble initiative 
and restricted action of primitive faith, but an inspira- 
tion working through the efforts of faith from the very 
beginning. Even the great prophetic burdens are not 
made up chiefly of apocalyptic foreshadowings, but are 
brought home to men's business and bosoms in realistic 
and historic expression. The canon of Scripture has not 

1 Is. viii. 20. 



PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 243 

provided for its own verification by outward criteria, — 
and for the very good reason that the practical discipline 
of reconciliation with God through the sacrifices of faith 
and obedience is the canon of the canon ; the organic 
law of revelation brings its own elements into vital 
unity, and disowns what is foreign to its purpose. 
Higher than the heights, deeper than the depths, the 
divine Reason, like the air we breathe, finds us in the 
very centre of conscious life, and is never needing to be 
brought from far. The note of revelation is this : " The 
word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy 
heart, that thou mayest do it." ^ 

The offering of gifts and sacrifices to an unseen Power, 
as represented either in the holy Scriptures or in general 
history, is the worship of primitive culture. Tentative 
at first, this worship is expanded and systematized with 
the progress of thought and experience, until the original 
faith and motive are analyzed into various elements, 
and these elements are noted by variations of ritual 
in accordance with an essential unity of purpose. But 
the germinal idea of all sacrifice is worship ; and since 
this idea, even as a germ, involves man's whole moral 
constitution, we are sure that in its fullest growth it can- 
not surpass the essential quality of its vital beginning. 
Hence the original simplicity of motive and thought in 
sacrifice is the clue to guide us through any labyrinth of 
ceremonies in a sacrificial economy. An action, speak- 
ing more plainly than words, gives a simple, solid sense ; 
while words and phrases may divide and diffuse the 
same sense in a lore of details, that have their oneness 
and life in the original action. To go back to the earli- 
est and simplest rite of worship is to gain a starting- 

1 Deut. XXX. 11-13. Rom. x. 6-9. 



244 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

point for appreciating the whole order and movement of 
spiritual facts. 

Let ns turn to the fourth chapter of Genesis, and be- 
ginning at the third verse read on through the seventh. 
"We are held to read simply what is there stated, the 
body and pressure of the time, not the constructions and 
inferences of subsequent ages and systems of thought. 
Two men of one family, heirs of a fresh world that has 
rewarded their several industries, each bringing an offer- 
ing of such things as he has to the unseen Power, Life 
of all life and Kuler of all being, — what does it mean ? 
There is only one sphere of thought in which the dif- 
ferent parts of their action can be combined. It is 
worship. The language is : " Thou, Source of hfe, art 
sovereign and sufficient ; I am tributary and dependent. 
Thou hast ordained the lower orders of living things for 
the service of the higher, and through us dost summon 
all things to the acknowledgment and service of thy- 
self, who art the Highest. I offer thee of what is thine, 
as I am thine. Let me be at one with thee in the way 
of homage and obedience." Could the act of sacrifice 
properly signify less than this, however darkly under- 
stood ? And, with whatever distinctions and develop- 
ments of the conception, could it possibly mean more ? 
Nay, the day of righteousness is signified in the dawn 
of faith, and the first true devotion is fulfilled in the 
final reconcihation. 

But insincerity in the expression of homage is not 
worship. It is the contradiction of worship. The spirit 
must give validity to the form, if the form is not to be- 
lie the spirit. No harmony with divine truth, but only 
consciousness of rebuke and remorse, while the sin of 
hypocrisy is lying at the door. By the steadfast faith 



PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 245 

of the doer, is the character and significance of the thing 
done ; and so " by faith/' not otherwise, " Abel offered 
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." ^ And 
by the same faith Abel had in himself the testimony of 
his righteousness, while Cain had the conviction of sin 
and the sense of divine displeasure, as inseparable from 
his unbelief and formality. 

Could any rational being suppose that the Maker of 
all things would respect an offering for what it was in 
itself, and not for what it was in the intention of him 
who brought it ? The offering was an instrument of 
communication, a bond of attention, a testimony of de- 
sire and trustful expectation, a pledge of loyalty, that 
might be interpreted as the sign and seal of a mutual 
covenant, by the divine response in the faithful soul sup- 
ported by the divine goodness in the ordering of the 
world. Thus, while recognizing faith as the one princi- 
ple of man's communion with his Creator, the story of 
this primitive sacrifice conveys the correlative truth of 
the Creator's disciplinary judgment declared in the con- 
science of man. 

Life devoted to the service of life, life passing by 
death into higher life, — this, as we have seen, is the 
law by which all orders of living things are adjusted to 
each other and to their common end in the physical 
domain. And now, as the spiritual manhood rises above 
its physical necessities, it is held under the same law. 
We see man tributary to the divine government, called 
to a spiritual homage in the very fact of being open to 
suggestions from above, and moved to express that hom- 
age in the consecration and sacrifice of physical life, ani- 
mal or vegetable, in accordance with its demands. The 

1 Heb. xi. 4. 



246 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

sacrifice is practically a recognition of physical death as 
entering into the divine economy of life, not, indeed, for 
the sake of death, but for the sake of more and better 
life to come. The worship of sacrifice is of a nature to 
combine ideally with all experience and history, to ab- 
sorb meaning from the divine dealings, and to sustain 
the faltering steps of man as he follows his invisible 
Guide in a way of ever-new life, whose end he cannot 
make out. 

Accordingly, when the flood had swept away a violent 
and intractable race, and in the silence that ensued there 
was the hushed submission of one redeemed family, the 
head of that family was not without a deep conviction 
of what the judgment signified. As the sacrifice of faith 
was burning upon Noah's altar,^ a covenant of new life 
and hope was defining its great promise in his soul. The 
race was saved. Creation was risen out of the deluge. 
In a world of waters and of clouds there was to be 
henceforth the all-ruling sun, and the bow in the cloud ; 
instead of the present devastation, seasons and harvests, 
unfailing proof of the divine bounty and forbearance, 
though the imagination of man's heart be evil from his 
youth. 

Here is sacrifice of identical yet developed significance. 
The expression of personal homage and devotion is made 
the vehicle of a divine interpretation of history. A signal 
advance is announced in the reconciling process, as a 
mighty impact of divine thought and energy has taken 
effect upon the course of nature. Henceforth worship 
shall have such meaning, and law such sanction for 
mankind, that the exceptional piety of one family shall 
not be vindicated in a general destruction. Eather the 

1 Gen. viii. 20. 



PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 247 

sacrifices of personal righteousness shall avail for the 
salvation of successive generations. The persistency of 
human society, being compatible with the progressive 
revelation of the divine character, becomes subservient to 
the propagation of a rational faith. 

The simple and majestic personality of Abraham i ap- 
propriately sums up the trials and successes of patri- 
archal faith. His is a character not merely dutiful as 
respects the daily intimations of a higher Will ; he is a 
man of far-reaching forecast, of watchful and prophetic 
devotion, — a man to enter, by such sacrificial offices as 
the wisdom of the time and his own inspiration pointed 
out, into a covenanted co-operation with God for bring- 
ing to pass the future of mankind. A man of God, for 
the reason among others that he was a man to command 
his children and his household after him, Abraham was 
not unfit to receive circumcision as the sign and seal of 
a family consecration to the divine service. Still he was 
by no means shut up to personal and family considera- 
tions, but gladly paid the homage of tithes to Melchize- 
deck, regarding simply the priest's eternal function, no 
matter from whom inherited or to whom transmitted. 
He was more than the father of a faithful progeny in 
the ordinary sense — a father of the faithful in a tran- 
scendent sense. From him in the order of nature was 
to come the consummate Example of faith, in whom all 
families of the earth should be blessed.^ 

Sacrificial worship, that makes its appearance with no 
explanatory reference to how it originated, that becomes 
the note of a sharp moral distinction between Abel and 
Cain, that, after the Deluge, serves Noah as a sign of the 
Creator's reconciliation with man, in view of his future 

1 Gen. XV. ^ Gen. xii. 3 and xxviii. 14. 



248 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

trial, — this same worship not only served in the experi- 
ence of Abraham as the medium through which he made 
and received the ratification of his covenant with God, 
much as men were accustomed to ratify covenants with 
each other, but gave its outward form to the severest 
test of the patriarch's faith, ^ 

The spirit of Abraham was too active and aspiring 
for religious routine ; nor could he yield his judgment to 
the fiction that by any outward measure of sacrifices his 
due to God could be definitively paid. The choice trib- 
ute from herd and flock, or from the products of the 
ground, what was this but the pledge of endless personal 
devotion, of unlimited practical surrender ? Whatever 
God could ask, that it should be his joy to yield. And 
what could God ask? Might he not — did he not — 
demand a return of his best gifts ? Could any offering 
bespeak more confidence than the Creator of all things 
deserved? Could even the child of promise be with- 
held ? Might not this lamb also have been provided for 
a sacrifice ? Impossible, did it seem ? For that very 
reason why might it not be true ? Shall faith confine 
itself to what is possible with men, and do no honor 
to what is possible only with God ? 

Whatever example, suggestion, or argument may have 
wrought in the patriarch's mind, all is summed up in 
his persuasion that the strange and terrible thought was 
not his own but his Maker's ; while at the same time he 
was strong in the belief that no part of the divine prom- 
ise as to him and his seed should fail. " In the mount 
of the Lord it shall be seen." ^ Supported by his trust 
the father of tlie faithful took his journey to the mount 
of the Lord, and made ready for the sacrifice. Then, 

1 Gen. xxii. ^ Qen. xxii. 14. 



PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 249 

indeed, and there, it was seen — seen in the light of 
a conclusive experience — that obedience, unconditional 
confidence and devotion of spirit, the very essence of 
acceptable service, was the reality desired by God. But 
the literal offering up of a child upon the altar was 
by no means permitted, could not have been the divine 
intention, as it was not when human sacrifices were 
forbidden under the Law. Abraham offered a living 
sacrifice, a reasonable service. He surrendered himself 
to God as a willing organ of the divine thought ; and 
so was made to understand, not how far the sacrifice 
of self could go, but how far the sacrifice of another 
could not go. 

But, though the high priest of self-sacrifice was yet to 
come ; though the way, the truth, and the life, of per- 
sonal consecration to the Father on behalf of the breth- 
ren, was not fully revealed; yet, was not all sacrifice 
properly self-sacrifice ? Was it the victim and not him- 
self, — the victim instead of himself, — the offering, of 
whatever kind, as a commutation for self-surrender, that 
was the meaning of sacrificial worship ? If tribute how- 
ever small signifies subjection and loyalty to human 
authorities, must not tribute to the Supreme mean un- 
conditional submission on man's part, — even in the 
very fact of making appeal for protection or forgive- 
ness ? When the patriarch's loyalty is well proved, a 
sacrifice is provided to express it, not to oppress it ; 
and Isaac is reserved to offer himself a living sacrifice, 
as the way shall be opened to his devotion and service. 

It is thus, through tentative and typical stages, that 
the law of sacrifice moves on to its fulfilment in the 
Christ ; when it becomes universal, not as the offering up 
of victims at all, but as the consecration of personal life. 



250 . NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

The gospel preached before unto Abraham^ was the 
same in effect which became afterwards the Word of 
God to all the world : " He that taketh not his cross 
and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." ^ 

But, though the ritual of sacrifice, — the form of 
worship in which man pays his voluntary tribute of sub- 
mission to the divine ordering of life, — may begin and 
change, and as to some of its features pass away, the 
real sacrifice, the actual submission of life to the divine 
disposal, in the course of nature and in the administra- 
tion of moral government, dates from the foundation of 
the world, and cannot pass away till all the law of it be 
fulfilled. All that a man hath as a creature of the cos- 
mos shall he give for that life which is his as heir of 
God and of eternity. The sweat of his brow, the pro- 
ducts of his toil, the fruit of his body, yea, his very 
flesh and blood, shall denote simply his tribute to a 
spiritual creation and an immortal life. The first offer- 
ing is fulfilled in the final offering. The gifts of God 
are duly acknowledged only as they all pass, in dutiful 
submission to his law, through all forms of sacrifice by 
which the consummation of being can be subserved. 

This is what people before the flood are conceived as 
slow to learn. The preponderance of a lusty animal 
force was the relative suppression of spiritual virtue. 
Yet the divine law of atonement did not leave them 
out. If they were not ready then to come to terms with 
their Maker, by presenting their bodies a living sacrifice 
in a reasonable service, their Maker had the alternative 
of asserting his claim in a judgment which could not be 
resisted. The divine administration simply adjusted its 
procedure to the eternal righteousness, — and made the 

1 Gal. iii. 8. 2 Matt. x. 38. 



PRIMITIVE AND PATRIARCHAL SACRIFICE. 251 

disobedient generation an involuntary sacrifice for the 
redemption of human society, in anticipation of that 
just One, who, having freely tasted death for every man, 
is represented by his Apostle as bearing the good news 
of spiritual refuge and reconciliation to those very ante- 
diluvians, who sought no escape from impending ruin, 
when the typical ark was preparing. ^ Thus the long- 
suffering of God is salvation in universal history. The 
sacrifice of a day may seem exorbitant to the children of 
a day ; but the economy of sacrifice, in its infinite range, 
can mean neither less nor more than the greatest good 
at the least expense. 

Good, not evil, is the vital energy and rational sug- 
gestion of history at every period. The process of recon- 
ciling mankind to the Father involves the proof of 
divine sympathy with suffering, — even suffering in- 
curred by sin, — and of divine satisfaction in view of 
all evil giving way, through the struggle of faith, to the 
peace of obedience; a divine sympathy and satisfac- 
tion least understood when a world is given over to 
physical destruction for the moral rescue of mankind in 
a single family, — most persuasively revealed when One 
like the Son of man endures the last physical agony, for 
the spiritual redemption of all the families of the earth. 

1 1 Peter iii. 18-20. 



CHAPTEE V. 

SACEIFICE UIs^DER THE LAW. 

^ I ^HE movement of patriarchal life is toward national 
■^ life. There is a corresponding advance in sacrifi- 
cial worship. 

So long as the household lives the life of its head, the 
patriarch fulfils all mediatorial offices on behalf of his 
family. He is prophet, priest, and king. He presents a 
striking type of the one Mediator, through whom the 
universal Father deals with the whole household of faith 
through all generations. But when patriarchal pre-emi- 
nence gives way to the national spirit and authority, 
then a redeemed and consecrated society becomes in 
Scripture the comprehensive unity, type of universal hu- 
manity, conceived as under the moral discipline of the 
Father and object of his redeeming love, while the func- 
tion of mediating the divine teaching and direction for 
the government of all is specialized in different official 
persons, — the prophet, the priest, the king. 

The patriarchal experience was clearly to the effect 
that exemplary sacrifices could be a source of no satis- 
faction to the Eternal, except as the genuine token of 
submission and duty on the part of man. It was by his 
faith, not by sacrifice as an outward ceremonial, that 
Abraham came into his communion with divine truth 



SACRIFICE UNDER THE LAW. 253 

and goodness, and to his consequent separation from the 
sensuality and superstition of the time. This faith, com- 
ing down by spiritual descent, was illustrated anew 
when the children of Abraham and of Israel were 
brought out of Egypt to be planted, as a holy nation 
and heir of God, in their promised inheritance. 

The story needs to be recalled only in its moral fea- 
tures, by way of keeping up the connection of our argu- 
ment. The ruler of Egypt, usurping the prerogatives of 
God, had enslaved the people of God, and so was alien- 
ating them from the divine service. Israel, the real 
priQce in the earthly household, was to be rehabilitated. 
The spirit of religion was to call into action the feeling 
of nationality, and patriotic zeal was to be enlisted in 
working out the divine intention on behalf of all man- 
kind. In the name of Jehovah the Israelites asked per- 
mission to leave their burdens for three days, that they 
might worship in the wilderness. But Egypt did not 
recognize the God of Israel, and paid him no willing 
tribute of obedience. Therefore Israel was redeemed 
from bondage at greater cost, and especially at greater 
cost to Egypt. Israel was called the chosen son of Jeho- 
vah, his first-born. Should not the Egyptians be made to 
feel Jehovah's displeasure at their offence, even at the 
sacrifice of their own first-born sons if other chastise- 
ments should fail ? ^ 

With Israel, also, the crisis was one of life and death. 
They saw themselves in an evil case. For not only had 
they roused the tyranny and violence of the Egyptians, 
but their God, so they thought, might bring pestilence 
upon them, if they failed of paying due honor to his call. 
Their faith and obedience were appealed to as the ground 

i Exodus iv. 22, 23. 



254 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of a difference to be put between them and their op- 
pressors. In the emergency the Passover celebration 
was instituted, as a token of their fellowship in the di- 
vine counsels, and as a pledge of their exemption from 
the signal infliction which Egypt's obstinacy had at last 
made necessary. The Passover was thereafter a per- 
petual memorial, not only of a popular redemption and 
national birth, but of a divine ministration of life, 
strength, and joy. 

Here, again, the ruling idea of sacrifice is not wanton 
waste or uncalled-for surrender; it is much rather the 
levying of a wise and discriminating tax upon physical 
life for the correction and conservation of spiritual hu- 
manity as a whole. The flesh prepared and eaten in 
strenuous haste, as the nourishment of sudden resolve 
and urgent enterprise, becomes a sacramental element, — 
the sign and pledge of seasonable succor evermore minis- 
tered by unchangeable Goodness ; though the blood upon 
the lintel told of unoffending human victims prematurely 
taken out of a genial existence in the cause of Israel's 
emancipation. How could Israel's debt to such victims 
be paid, unless for them also Israel, the Son of God, was 
was to offer himself freely in working out a universal 
redemption ? 

The transition from patriarchal to national religion, 
marked by the Passover institution,^ involved no change 
of principle, great as was the change of pohtical and 
social economy which it contemplated. Under the lead- 
ership of Moses, the man of God, the national organiza- 
tion is set forth as distinctively that of the people of 
God. In the Hebrew political economy not only educa- 
tional interests, but the moral and sanitary regulation of 

1 Exodus xii. 



SACRIFICE UNDER THE LAW. 255 

society was inseparably linked with the public service of 
God in the national worship. The worship of the na- 
tion claimed the devoted and exclusive attention of a 
tribe, while the priestly functions were still further 
specialized in a family, and came to their consumma- 
tion' in a single man. Thus not only the rights and 
privileges of citizenship, but the national charters and 
hopes were guaranteed under an elaborate system of 
religious observances, wherein all personal obligations 
were determined with a scrupulous regard to the uni- 
ties of time, place, and action. 

Oneness of national worship required not only that 
the priests be separated from other pursuits and conse- 
crated to one service, but also that all objects belonging 
to the holy place, or utensils employed in the sacred 
ceremonies, should likewise be separated from common 
uses, and devoted to their peculiar purpose. To make 
holy, to set apart any object from common relations to a 
sacred function or to a religious use, implied the two 
correlative ideas of separation and atonement, — separa- 
tion from all common applications, atonement to one 
spiritual aim. Thus on behalf of the whole nation was 
to be presented one unadulterated worship, one grateful 
tribute of the best to the Giver of all, the homage in 
which every loyal soul should have his personal offering 
more worthily presented. 

To the same purpose, also, the blood ^ taken as the 
unity of physical life jvas made the sacrificial symbol of 
a higher unity, the oneness of spiritual reconciliation. 
It was evident then as now that there could be no unity 
of spiritual devotion unless all physical life were in 

1 Lev. viii., xvi., xvii. 11-14; Deut. xii. 23; Heb. ix. 22-28; 
xiii. 12. 



256 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

effect laid upon the altar. To live physically might 
mean to die spuitually, while to live spiritually would 
assuredly demand, sooner or later, the giving up to death 
of the flesh. And so, living or dying, it was for the 
people of Jehovah to be his. They "were to find in him 
their inheritance and their home for the time present 
and forever. The blood of the sacrifice was the token of 
sanctification, not only for all inanimate things, but also 
for the priests, and through them for the people. They 
were a peculiar people, set apart from foreign entangle- 
ments, united in the same spiritual motive and obedi- 
ence. Their sacrifice meant, not that they were asking 
to be exempted from physical death and moral correc- 
tion, but that they were held to surrender their animal 
. and worldly existence, with its warring lusts, to the law 
and Spirit of Jehovah — One in All. 

As has been already intimated, distinctions of form in 
sacrificial worship, while they may set in clearer light 
interior relations of thought, cannot add to what is 
essentially involved in the primitive burnt-offering. 
Growth develops only what the germ contains. But 
what seems at first concrete and simple, may push its 
substance out into many branches. To make an offer- 
ing by fire, to pay the tribute of life to the Giver of 
life, is to express worship in its complete or undivided 
sense, — submission with respect to whatever may be 
feared, dependence as to all that can be desired or hoped 
for. Such worship has its natural reaction in the loyal 
spirit. There ensues the peace of faith, the persuasion 
that what was well-meant on the worshipper's part must 
be " blessed, approved, ratified, reasonable, and accepta- 
ble," on the part of the Being adored. The peace of sub- 
mission passes into the joy of communion ; and this, 



SACRIFICE UNDER THE LAW. 257 

again, suggests a new phase of the same worship. A 
peace-offering may be brought, a festive, eucharistic wor- 
ship, part of the victim going up by fire to the Source of 
being, part eaten by the worshippers in thankful assur- 
ance of harmony with their God and with one another. 
Yet the original worship includes all, both the act of 
surrender and the peace of submission. To trust in 
Goodness is to enter into the inheritance of joy. The 
thank-offering may be allowed a place and order of its 
own. This is only to enrich the language of worship, 
not to transcend its necessary sense. 

In this way the spiritual oneness of worship deter- 
mines a significant variation of forms. The vague sense 
of ignorance, error, and possible offence, if not the clear 
conviction of wrong-doing, is essential to worship of the 
rudest type, as it is original in man. But with law comes 
the clear knowledge of sin, which finds a specific expres- 
sion in the sin-offering. The duller and darker appeal, 
of a stranger in the earth seeking direction from above, 
grows to the quickened moral perception and penitential 
desire expressed in the expiatory sacrifice, — a form of 
worship which requires confession, and perhaps restitu- 
tion, in consequence of actual disobedience, after the 
divine command has been distinctly given. 

The law points out the practical conditions on which 
the divine favor is pledged. It sets forth the terms on 
which it is sought to bring the chosen people more and 
more into spiritual accord with their Protector and 
Prince. How can one share in a common worship un- 
der the law when one is not careful to cherish an hab- 
itual reverence for the law ? A citizen must hold to the 
compact if he is not to be cut off from the covenant- 
keeping people. But if he has violated the covenant, 

17 



258 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

however ignorantly, then in penitence, absolution, and 
reconciliation is his hope. The moral discipline and the 
visible symbols by means of which the atoning process 
is practically administered, so as to legitimate and fortify 
the sense of reconciliation, are essential to the effective- 
ness and perpetuity of the theocratic idea. If a loyal 
spirit can be begotten and sustained, then the law of the 
Lord, which is perfect, converting the soul, can work in 
accordance with its infinite intention ; then the King of 
Israel can teach and guide his people, opening their way 
out of errors and sufferings into virtue and peace. 

But a law that is to impress its spirit upon un- 
schooled subjects must make provision for a becoming 
patience and considerateness of discipline. It must 
avoid the extremes both of penalty and of indulgence ; 
or else, instead of reconciling and governing the trans- 
gressor, it may precipitate a fatal event. Hence, while 
the theocratic economy is ever intent upon reconciling 
transgressors, the atonement is not without sacrifice. If 
the way of transgressors is hard, the grace of reconcili- 
ation, though free, is not allowed to be held cheap. 
Something must set forth the offence, and mark the 
repentance ; that the offender may be treated without 
untruth or illusion. But once the offender is reconciled 
to law he is in no equivocal position. He belongs to 
the loyal society without protest or suspicion. To him, 
as to all the true Israel, pertain " the adoption, and the 
glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and 
the service of God, and the promises." ^ He has only to 
be willing and obedient : he shall be taken gradually into 
the fellowship and service of the supreme Euler. 

In the atonement here contemplated a vital process is 

1 Rom. ix. 4. 



SACRIFICE UNDER THE LAW. 259 

carried on by means of specific acts. The specific acts of 
atonement have to be repeated, in order that the spiritual 
work of atonement may be completed. The law sustains 
an economy of practical discipline in the interest of 
spiritual reconciliation ; but does not bring to pass 
the final oneness of God and his children. That all 
change may have reference to one end, all effort to one 
motive, all conduct to one principle, all possessions to 
one purpose, all words to one thought, all notes to one 
harmony, — just as all life, circulating in the veins of all 
flesh, is referred to one living and immortal Creator, — 
such is the atonement in its larger import, of which the 
blood of the consecrated victim is made a sign. Physi- 
cal sohdarity is laid under tribute in the cause of spirit- 
ual unification. Life is poured forth from its physical 
channels, that it may return to God in testimony of 
loyal spirits, who have been taught betimes that all pro- 
visional organization is to be offered up in the divine 
service. 

The worship of Israel under the law is therefore iden- 
tical with the patriarchal and primitive sacrifice, — only 
it is accommodated in details of ritual to new conditions. 
To be at one with the Eternal is what the popular wor- 
ship seeks in the daily sacrifice. That transgressors may 
not fatally break away from the law, so as to forfeit 
their personal interest in the constant offices and spirit- 
ual comforts of the national worship, but be kept in 
wholesome allegiance and perpetual peace, — such is the 
atonement which the sin-offering and the kindred tres- 
pass-offering are designed to signify and secure. Take 
away from the altar service the idea of national and per- 
sonal consecration, — the idea of bringing human spirits to 
harmony and oneness according to the divine thought, — 



260 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

and what is left is not worship, but the contradiction of 
worship. To confess, to repudiate and to forsake sin, 
and so to find the promised mercy and relief ; to submit 
one's life to the divine disposal, to accept the will of God 
both in action and suffering at wliatever cost, and so to 
be at one with him; what else can all the symbols of 
purgation and devotion signify ? Communion with the 
Wisdom that makes for righteousness, through truth as 
at present ministered, in hope of higher communion 
with the same Wisdom, through truth yet to be dis- 
closed, is the only guaranty, as it is the universal law, 
of man's spiritual development and moral harmony. 

The law was not to be satisfied with perfunctory 
ritual. It demanded that men should really live and 
learn. No regulation diligence, no prescriptive decen- 
cies, could avail without sincerity of soul. If sacrifices 
and offerings did not signify worship, they could not but 
falsify worship. The faculties and forms of religion, set 
free from the service of rational faith, would be prompt 
to find a career of worldly profit in a popular and cere- 
monious superstition. So deep was the concern for spir- 
itual reality, that the calendar of seasonable religious 
observances was not rounded without a day of positive 
and painful reflection upon by-gone experiences. To 
afflict the soul in view of past errors was deemed essen- 
tial in girding up the loins of the mind for coming 
trial, — that spirits might rise with new vigor and hope, 
law be estabhshed in new honor and obedience, through 
a sense of the Goodness that would not allow even the 
disobedient and unthankful to be without the tokens 
of continued subjection and reconciliation to the law's 
control. 

Not whenever he might choose, not with ordinary 



SACRIFICE UNDER THE LAW, 261 

preparation or any easy presumption of official purity, 
was even the high-priest to present himself in the 
presence-chamber of the Eternal.^ One day in the year, 
with one series of sacrifices, wherein the sins of the 
people are not only confessed and repudiated, but borne 
away in a figure from the habitable earth, so that the 
abodes of men may become one with the sanctuary of 
God, — one high-priest, of one consecrated line, on behalf 
of one holy nation, in one holiest of holy places, presents 
one universal devotion, the concord of penitential desire 
and pious resolve, referring all existence to one Creator, 
and all law to one Authority. 

It cannot be that we are to dissolve and destroy this 
unity of divine service, by any extreme construction of 
language that represents the high-priest as acting " for 
the people." 

To be the vicar of any power implies the responsible 
action of that power, — not its non-recognition or efface- 
ment. The vicar is the substitute, only in being the 
agent, of those for whom he stands. He is not their 
substitute as distinguished from their organ. He does 
not act that they may do nothing, but that they may 
do more worthily. The high-priest passed within the 
veil, not that the people might be left outside the hal- 
lowed precinct, but that they might enter the sacred 
court with due order and solemnity. He was not serv- 
ing God in the place of the people because the people 
were not serving, but because they were serving. He 
stood for a kingdom of priests and a holy nation in its 
unity, — for all as at one with the mediating priest ; as 
the priest, in utter submission and devotion, was at one 
with God. 

1 Lev. xvi.; xxiii. 27; xxv. 9. Heb. x. 



262 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

The term "atonement," as employed in the law, is 
neither mystical nor ambiguous. It has its practical ap- 
plications in a religious economy which contemplates the 
setting apart of things to the highest and holiest service. 
If men are to be consecrated to God's service, atonement 
refers to means and ministries to this end. A subject, 
alienated m a particular way from his proper obedience 
to law, may give new proof of personal allegiance, may be 
reconciled to his permanent obligations and reinstated in 
forfeited privileges, by means of a particular act of con- 
fession and submission for the past, and loyalty for the 
future ; and such an act is called an atonement. The 
law and the offender are by this means made to be, for 
a hopeful instant certainly, at one. So in all acts of 
pious obedience and submission, the divine mind and 
will are conceived as coining into the motions of human- 
ity, while, reciprocally, the human is drawing towards 
its consummation in the divine. The real work of rec- 
onciliation is nothing less than the eternal revelation of 
the Father in his children. 

In carrying on this revelation the service of the priest 
cannot dispense with the service of the prophet ; and 
both services must be united and fulfilled in the theo- 
cratic King, in order that the reign of God may be ap- 
prehended as not the discipline of a peculiar people 
alone, but of all mankind. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

SACRIFICE ACCORDING TO THE PROPHETS. 

AS the priest acts in communion with the people, or 
- else his ministry falls into hopeless neglect, so 
the sacrifice is recognized as the act of the worshipper 
who brings it, or else sacrifice sinks into helpless rou- 
tine. A devoted soul must speak through the devoted 
thing : the devoted thing cannot make amends for the 
lack of a devoted soul. Indeed, how should a man 
alienate himself from the service of God, if not by pay- 
ing its outward dues as a means of avoiding its inward 
discipline ? Or, how should a man think to escape the 
consequences of disloyalty, but by shifting his personal 
liability to the shoulders of a victim ? But the fresh, 
constant, popular inspiration, from which worship origi- 
nally springs, will look for no escape from punishment, 
under a just government, but in getting rid of that 
which deserves and entails punishment. Take joyfully 
your duty in the service of Truth, Goodness, God ; or, 
expect the prompt and persistent retribution of disaster 
and sorrow, which God will send as his testimony 
against your sin, — such is the moral burden of the 
prophets. 

In all crises of the commonwealth, especially, with 
what vivid and cogent appeals to conscience do they 



264 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

insist that outward ordinances must have their f ulfihnent 
in spiritual fidelity, as the condition of their not being 
profaned by carelessness and hypocrisy. So long as 
the ritiial of the altar was the proof of godliness in the 
nation, it was also the promise of peace and prosperity ; 
but when piety was discredited, then ceremonial sacri- 
fices became flagrant offences, to be succeeded by con- 
dign correction. 

" I will go into thy house with burnt-offerings : I will 
offer unto thee burnt-sacrifices of fatlings with the in- 
cense of rams ; I will offer bullocks with goats." ^ Such 
was the resolution of one who had called upon Jehovah 
in trouble and desired to pay the tribute of pious thank- 
fulness in the day of his deliverance. " Then shall the 
cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and 
cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense ; but 
they shall not save them at all in the time of their 
trouble." ^ " And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it 
not evil ? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not 
evil ? Offer it now to thy governor, will he be pleased 
with thee, or accept thy person ? " ^ These are typical 
passages of prophetic reproof and warning. What are 
the pictures of national dignity and prosperity, with 
which prophetic faith fills up the future of a repentant 
and restored Israel ? They are pictures that contem- 
plate the imiversal prevalence of piety, according to the 
familiar type of divine service at the Jewish altar. 
" And they shall come from the cities of Judah and 
from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of 
Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, 
and from the South, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacri- 
fices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing sacri- 

1 Ps. Ixvi. 13, 15. 2 jer. xi. 12. ^ ;^Xal. i. 8. 



SACRIFICE ACCORDING TO THE PROPHETS. 265 

fices of praise, unto the house of the Lord." ^ " For thus 
saith the Lord, David shall not want a man to sit upon 
the throne of the house of Israel ; neither shall the priests 
and the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt- 
offerings, and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice 
continually." 2 "And the Gentiles shall come to thy 
light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. . . . All 
the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee : 
they shall come up with acceptance upon mine altar, 
and I will glorify the house of my glory." ^ " And the 
Lord shall be known to Egypt, and Egypt shall know 
the Lord in that day, and they shall do sacrifice and 
oblation ; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and 
perform it." * Such predictions are looked upon as re- 
ferring ultimately to the Messianic era, though clothed 
in the conventional drapery proper to the worship of 
the day. 

But, natural or unavoidable as it may be, that antici- 
pations of the future should be set forth in imagery of 
the present, too much should not be made of mere 
imagery. How unnatural, if the prophetic teaching 
were chargeable with a lack of lively testimony against 
the weakness and unprofitableness of empty ritual. As 
a matter of fact, however, when they maintain the valid- 
ity of the rehgious spirit irrespective of ^ outward observ- 
ances, or inveigh against moral decadence dressed in the 
robes of sanctity, or point out the mean shifts of a time- 
serving priestcraft to throw off even the ritualistic re- 
straints of a serious worship, it is then that the prophets 
awaken us to a sense of something greater than moral 
disgust at hypocrisies and oppressions of the time, — 

1 Jer. xvii. 26. 2 jer. xxxiii. 17, 18. 

3 Is. Ix. 3-7. * Is. xix. 21. 



266 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

even an original and eternal conviction possessing them 
and bearing them on. They speak according to an un- 
changeable law of divine revelation, — a law from which 
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass, till all be 
fulfilled. They are as modern as the nineteenth century 
of our Lord; while the faith of our time is not less 
ancient than theirs, it being essentially the same yes- 
terday, and to-day, and forever. 

The venerable Samuel appears as the typical prophet 
in his business-like expostulation with King Saul : " Hath 
the Lord as great delight in burnt- offerings and sacrifices 
as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey 
is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams."^ The same moral inculcation is set forth in a 
proverb by a wiser king than Saul : " To do justice and 
judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice." ^ 
The immortal truth becomes the argument of deep per- 
sonal experience in the Psalms : " Sacrifice and offering 
thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened; 
burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. 
Then said I, Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is 
written of me, I delight to do thy will, my God : yea, 
thy law is within my heart." ^ "0 Lord, open thou my 
lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For 
thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou 
delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God 
are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, 
God, thou wilt not despise." * Isaiah reproves the apos- 
tasy of his people in the same strain : " Hear the word 
of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom : give ear unto the law 
of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is 

1 1 Sam. XV. 22. ^ Prov. xxi. 3. 

3 Ps. xL 6-8 ; Heb. x. 5-9. * Ps. H. 15-17. 



SACRIFICE ACCORDING TO THE PROPHETS. 267 

the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the 
Lord: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the 
fat of fed beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bul- 
locks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to 
appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, 
to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations ; in- 
cense is an abomination unto me; the new-moons and 
sabbaths, the calling of assemblies I cannot away with ; 
it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new- 
moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth ; they 
are a trouble unto me ; I am weary to bear them. And 
when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes 
from you ; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not 
hear ; your hands are full of blood." ^ 

Is there then no call to repentance, no hope of reconcil- 
iation ? If the sublime service of the altar has sunk to a 
sordid ritual of the shambles, is there not a law of atone- 
ment, vital and spiritual, such as might restore signifi- 
cance to signs, in giving reality to service ? No sacrifices 
with which God would be well pleased ? Hear the re- 
sponse : " AYash you, make you clean ; put away the evil 
of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; 
learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, 
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." ^ Again: 
" But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, 
and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. He 
that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man ; he that sacri- 
ficeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck ; he that offer- 
eth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood ; he that 
burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they 
have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth 
in their abominations." ^ All the prophets are moved 
1 Is. i. 10-15. 2 Is. i. 16, 17. 8 Is. ixvi. 2, 3. 



268 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

by the same moral conviction : " To what purpose cometh 
there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from 
a far country ? Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, 
nor your sacrifices sweet unto me." ^ " Thus saith the 
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; put your burnt-offerings 
unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto 
your fathers, in the day that I brought them out of Egypt, 
concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices ; but this thing 
commanded I them, saying : Obey my voice, and I will be 
your God, and ye shall be my people : and walk ye in 
all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be 
well unto you." ^ " For I desired mercy and not sacrifice ; 
and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings." ^ 
" I hate, I despise your feast-days, and I will not smell 
in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt- 
offerings and your meat-offerings, I will not accept them ; 
neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. 
Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs ; for I 
will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment 
run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty 
stream." * 

In this characteristic testimony of the prophets there 
seems to be more than a burning zeal for the restoration 
of a degraded ritual. The indignant conscience of pro- 
phetic souls is outgrowing its respect for the old cere- 
monies, and is growing into a longing to live in a simple 
moral rectitude, that should be equal to originating its 
own practical expression. The sacrificing of beasts as an 
order of worship was doomed to pass away. It was at best 
but a grotesque shadow. Hence the spirit of prophecy 
in its highest flight declined to use the altar language, 

1 Jer. vi. 20. 2 jgr. vii. 21-23. 

^ Hosea vi. 6. * Amos v. 21-24. 



SACRIFICE ACCORDING TO THE PROPHETS. 269 

and rejoiced in anticipations of '' a new covenant." " Be- 
hold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the 
house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by 
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which 
covenant they break, although I was an husband unto 
them, saith the Lord; but this shall be the covenant 
that I will make with the house of Israel: After those 
days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward 
parts, and write it in their hearts ; and will be their 
God, and they shall be my people. And they shall 
teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man 
his brother, saying, know the Lord; for they shall all 
know me from the least of them unto the greatest of 
them, saith the Lord : for I will forgive their iniquity, 
and I will remember their sin no more." ^ The outward 
and exemplary teaching can have its meaning only in 
the inward revelation. There are no atonements that 
can atone, no humiliations that can move the divine 
clemency, or satisfactions that can appease the divine 
displeasure, apart from inward obedience. " The law of 
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Our spiritual 
progress and our spiritual consummation are in obedi- 
ence. The maledictions of Mount Ebal are not cancelled 
by the ministrations of a worldly sanctuary, but are kept 
in salutary remembrance ratber. Eternal oneness with 
Eternal Eighteousness, and this alone, will perfectly su- 
persede their application. The absolute Being must be 
known as possessing and moving dependent natures. 

The law and the prophets and the psalms know only 
one principle of progressive virtue and ultimate peace, 

1 Jer. xxxi. 31-34 ; Heb. x. 15-18. 



270 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

namely, faith moving in obedience to the revelation of 
God. No canonized experience gives any principle but 
faith, or any method but obedience, for superseding the 
sacrifices of alienation — tears and blood — with the sac- 
rifices of righteousness — joy, praise, thanks. On the con- 
trary, all indulgence of distrust and opposition on the 
part of moral beings with reference to the Creator is 
under an unchangeable law of pain and loss, to the end 
that correction may result in reconciliation. In other 
words, there is a spiritual regeneration for which nature 
was originally made, and for which the long-suffering of 
God is engaged. All messengers and ministers of good- 
will are workers together with God ; and in this holy 
service the faultless personal consecration consists in 
perfect obedience to divine inspiration moving on to a 
perfection of self-sacrifice in benevolent conflict with 
powers of darkness. 

Accordingly, the Scriptures of the New Covenant 
bring us to one Mediator between God and man, the 
man Christ Jesus, ^ in whom the Law and the Prophets, 
all symbols and functions of atonement, are fulfilled for 
all ages and for all men. 

1 1 Tim. ii. 5. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

THE LAW OF ATONEMENT FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 

TT is to be noted that the typical portraiture in which 
■*- the Scriptures point our regards to the Man of prom- 
ise and perfection, has reference to his unique personal 
calling in relation to his fellow-men. All good service 
is shadow to his substance. He is the Eedeemer of his 
people, saves them from their sins, is the Mediator of 
a new covenant, — the eternal compact of peace and 
communion between God and man. His are the days 
wherein the Son of man is glorified as the Son of God. 
The First-begotten and Well-beloved of the Father is 
announced as Teacher and Guide of the human family. 
In him first God's spiritual adoption of his natural off- 
spring has come to its perfect and authoritative realiza- 
tion. God's reign in humanity is personally revealed. 
The way of perfection is opened to all. The last times 
and the best, the times of restitution and consumma- 
tion, have succeeded to the darker dispensation. The 
promised Prince of the house of Israel is also the desire 
of all nations, the universal Eeconciler and Euler. Di- 
vine truth in his heart is to move the utterance of 
human lips till mutual exhortation shall cease in a 
universal sway of truth, and the remembrance of sins 
shall pass away in the endless celebration of forgiveness 
and righteousness. 



272 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

This divine ideal fills all the moments of our Lord's 
life, and is owned by him, whether consciously or uncon- 
sciously, as the law and inspiration of his career. His 
ministry is represented by those who could not perfectly 
appreciate it ; and still it is distinctly conceived as that 
of a man whose spiritual powers were ever at one with 
the divine thought, in an unshaken constancy of obedi- 
ence to clear convictions of what the Father would have 
him to do, — all natural motions and involuntary impulses 
held in timely check and reasonable subordination. The 
energies and orbit of personal duty are regarded as con- 
tinually reaching their practical demonstration and just 
definition in his conduct, in order, not that the result 
may be expressed in a scientific formula or poetic dehn- 
eation, but that the spiritual action may communicate 
itself through faith, and so pass into the movement of 
individual life, into the habits of society, into the history 
of the world. 

In fine, the Saviour was to save his people from their 
sins by bringing them to the life of righteousness ; and 
this, not according to formal prescriptions and rules out- 
w^orn, but by a renovation of being which should make 
them ultimately perfect even as the Father in heaven is 
perfect. God and man, the Father and the Son, in the 
unity of the same Spirit, — this is the revelation of the 
Christ ; this is the fulfilment of law and prophecy ; for 
the reason that it is the original and eternal conception 
of the Creator coming through gradual and mysterious 
processes in nature to its first realization in a perfect 
man. And this bringing of the First-begotten into the 
world, this revelation of one man with the unlimited 
anointing of the divine Spirit, was expressly to the end 
that all men in like manner might become partakers of 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 273 

the divine nature. To make this reconciliation of the 
di\ane and human universal at whatever personal sacri- 
fice determines the Christian law of atonement, the law 
which the Christ magnified and made honorable through 
his Cross. This law is one of spiritual causation, and 
contemplates the necessary cost of overcoming moral 
mertia and active resistance, so as to vindicate all the 
outlay of history in a glory of the Father and a consum- 
mation of mankind to be ultimately revealed. 

But this simple appreciation of the historic reality, — 
does it truly sum up the Kedeemer's most spiritual and 
solemn conception of his own ministry ? Could any 
words surpass in depth and comprehensiveness those of 
his supplication to the Father on the eve of his cruci- 
fixion ? " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also which shall believe on me through their word, that 
they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world 
may believe that thou hast sent me." ^ "What could he 
add to this intercession that would enlarge its scope? 
What could he take away from it without dissolving its 
completeness ? If this prayer be not the assurance of 
what the Christ sought and hoped on our behalf, of what 
subordinate desire or less comprehensive travail of soul 
could he promise us the fulfilment ? Again, if this prayer 
be the worship of his life, and express the spiritual ser- 
vice to which he consecrated himself in death, it must 
interpret and co-ordinate all details of his ministry. 

At any rate, the unique priesthood and worship in 
which the Christ approaches the consummation of his 
earthly sacrifice raises humanity above all conventional 
boundaries of time or space, and presents it as moving 

1 John xvii. 20, 21. 
18 



274 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

in an eternal order of the universe. Judea and Galilee, 
Jews and Gentiles, ages of local phenomena and pedan- 
tic annals, — how they fade and vanish away in the 
eternal reign I The kingdom of God the Father includes 
the whole development of man the Son ; it includes 
man in the thought of the Creator before all worlds, 
man coming in the order of nature and time, man eter- 
nally begotten, the spiritual offspring and immortal heir 
of the Father, for whose sake the earthly family both 
lives and dies. The spiritual household of the Father 
begotten and born from being to being, not of Jews only 
but of Gentiles also, — is not this the one reality and 
realm, to which all creatures and all creations, according 
to our knowledge, are pointing and serving ? 

This infinite domain of life and power is brought to 
the consciousness and attention of infantile and way- 
ward members of the universal society, through that 
spiritual inspiration which determines a physical and 
moral resistance ; and in struggling with resistance men 
are trained for their high destiny. To animate inertness, 
to overrule contradiction, to reconcile opposition, to con- 
summate personal loyalty in perfect freedom, in a word, 
to make God's strength perfect in man's weakness, — 
such is indeed the type of spiritual causation wherein 
our present experience is involved ; but by faith we see 
the conflict atoned for in the righteousness, peace, and 
joy, toward which it tends. 

Accordingly, the Christ did not open communication 
with men from a serene seclusion, as example of an 
ideal aloofness of divine life from the struggles of hu- 
manity ; nor did he propose to reahze an ordinary peace 
on earth. He came to inaugurate division, to lead an 
invading force, to discipline the hosts of faith in practi- 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 275 

cal obedience to the universal Spirit of Love. Trium- 
phal repose was reserved for an ulterior revelation. The 
miracle of his ministry is that it shows a man of perfect 
simplicity and intuitive penetration, — one working for 
God and man, for body and soul, for past and future, 
yet betrayed by no contrariety of appeals into confusion 
of thought or vacillation in conduct. Having all counsel 
and might from within, he acts in perfect faith ; and it 
is the absolute sovereignty of truth in him that wins 
the confidence and devotion of the faithful, — marking, 
with an adverse judgment no matter what power or pre- 
ponderance of unbelief in the present evil world. Eman- 
uel, God with us, — there is no other name for eternal 
life. Prophet, priest, king, — all are one in the divine 
Man ; and he fulfils all functions of divine service in a 
daily liturgy of simple action, wherein the supreme dig- 
nity is not divorced from the lowliest beneficence, and 
the immaculate holiness reaches out a hand to bless the 
penitent, no matter how polluted. His moral impact is 
so mighty that the world's massive and inveterate habit 
gives promise, in its resisting shock, of the new move- 
ment that shall pervade it. All things are not brought 
in a moment to their ultimate perfection, but nothing 
can continue in one stay : no law can abide in its old 
construction, no prophecy but surpasses its formal limi- 
tations, no personal virtue but needs to be born again, 
no accumulations of ancient wisdom in social order but 
must dissolve and be reorganized in the age to come. 
Eternal Eeason, in the fulness of an all-loving and all- 
inspiring zeal, will not allow even a provisional and 
relative rectitude to limit the law of ultimate perfection ; 
but dutiful Devotion, owning the aptitude for godliness 
already evinced by man, is calling forward, — saving the 



276 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

very elect from a false appreciation of that whereto they 
have already attained, and vindicating for the most rep- 
robate the prerogative of entering voluntarily into the 
calling and election of the divine Love. 

If we ask what is the essential element of the glad 
tidings of God brought by the Christ, the answer meets 
us everywhere in one word, — Love. The eternal Word 
of nature becomes the final utterance of Scripture. But 
the Scriptures give us no conception of Love incarnate, 
— Love conditioned in human nature and human society 
for the sake of their regeneration, — without the sign of 
self-sacrifice. The gospel is a gospel of triumph, under 
the banner of the cross : " In hoc signo vinces." As the 
ministry of Jesus Avas one of love in strenuous conflict 
with forces of unscrupulous self-will, it was accompa- 
nied by a growing sense of the way in which alone it 
could naturally end. 

Was he sent to bring the unchangeable Eeason into 
active contact with mankind ? Did he represent the 
eternal Father as ever rendering the testimony practi- 
cally due to his own perfections in the treatment of his 
offspring ? Was he the hierophant, also, of the world's 
proper worship — of what man should render unto God 
for all his benefits ? Then must this man have some- 
what to offer.^ A priest forever, it is for him to offer 
the human homage, not according to the sentiment and 
custom of a passing day, but according to the eternal 
spirit and truth of worship. 

Hence, as we study the notices given in the New 
Testament, of what was said and done by the Christ, we 
find all rational suggestions and necessary ideas of duty 
fulfilled in him. He is the organ and expression of uni- 

1 Heb. viii. 4. 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 277 

versal righteousness, — the absolute righteousness of God 
as well as the reciprocal duty of man. The well-beloved 
Son, given from everlasting by the Father for love of his 
world, consecrating himself to the Father in the unity of 
the eternal Spirit, for the work that was given him to 
do, he comes in the fuhiess of time, as at once the ex- 
press image of the Father's character and the supreme 
example of filial devotion. Who could convince him of 
sin ? In what relation did his obedience fail ? To what 
institution of man did he not render due honor for the 
Father's sake? To what requirement of divine Love was 
he wanting on behalf of the children ? What burden of 
proof or persuasion was he not ready to assume in his tes- 
timony to the truth ? What fruit of good livhig was not to 
grow, and is not still to grow, from the seed he planted ? 

Each stage in the proper development of a human 
being, from the incipient energy of natural existence to 
spiritual completeness of life in communion with the 
Father, is marked in the history of Jesus ; only, the 
crises of his career are indicated, not by any reluctance 
with respect to the new initiative, but by prompt as well 
as deliberate action. We see one epoch rounding itself to 
fulness in a new sense of duty that governs the succeed- 
ing movement, — in a course of unbroken obedience. 

The law of atonement through sacrifice appears in the 
earhest reconciliation of the inward and the outward 
life. The submission of childhood to its appomted con- 
ditions is not without foretaste of what the higher ser- 
vice will cost. The age of twelve years, the visit to the 
temple, the exciting contact with grave teachers of the 
law, the turning of his thought away from customary 
dependence upon those who had cherished his life as 
one with theirs, and who now sought him sorrowing, — 



278 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

what was this but the premonition of a unique Sonship, 
which, though schooled for about thirty years ^ in sub- 
jection to all authorities and institutions that could rep- 
resent to him the will of the Father, would by and by 
set him apart from his kindred, in the fact of his being 
about the Father's business on their behalf ?2 His way 
was prepared. Crooked places were made straight, and 
rough places plain. Yet the last and greatest of the 
servants sent before the advancing Prince could not 
cause the wilderness to disappear, or make perfect the 
highway which it was reserved for him alone to open. 
That lonely trial in the wilderness, wherein the distinc- 
tion between the divine method of moral influence, and 
conventional methods of worldly success was brought 
out in its genuine character, proved the Prince's loyalty 
to the reign of God, and proved, also, what that loyalty 
would have to contend with in subduing all things.^ 
Then came the strenuous public ministry, brief as stren- 
uous, — vindicating the law and the prophets by the 
setting forth of their full vigor and reach in word and 
deed, — the training of apostles, the general yet secret 
working of truth, popular docility, and consequent oppo- 
sition of menaced authority, culminating in the crucifix- 
ion ; and thereafter endless reconciliation and triumph, 
— the resurrection, the re-animation of the faithful, the 
great commission, the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, 
the proclamation of the glad tidings, the exaltation of 
the Christ, not merely in the glory that was before the 
foundation of the world, essential and eternal, but in the 
glory that was ensuing and evermore to follow increas- 
ingly, till creation, providence, and redemption should 
be fulfilled according to one purpose of the Eternal. 

1 Luke iii. 23. 2 Luke ii. 41-52. 3 Matt. iv. 1-11. 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 279 

The Evangelists point to the divine Word as uttering 
itself in syllables and moments, yet so as to signify the 
absolute truth. The peculiar character of Christ's work 
is conceived to be in the fact that, as he is addressing 
himself to men, his teaching reaches its aim with effec- 
tive precision and authority, and there is no just appeal 
from faith, nor rational need of argument. 

The great Teacher was not a doctrinaire. He did not 
set himself first of all to correct the intellectual systems 
or the popular theories of his day. He was the Eevealer 
of spiritual life, not the scribe conventionally instructed 
in the law. His intuitive faith and devotion recognized 
the infinite thought and energy in nature, exactly at the 
point where the grosser medium seems to limit or resist 
the controlling "Will. To teach implies limitation and 
resistance. To make disciples implies an overcoming 
influence and constant progress. To be the vital Truth 
and the quickening Word, to inspire in mankind the 
assurance that the Father's eternal universe includes 
and governs the child's passing world, — this implies the 
regeneration and the world to come. It means, not that 
the pangs of birth or the dangers of growth are super- 
seded by any magical method, at variance with the law 
of spiritual creation as already made known, but rather 
that the same creative process moves on to its highest 
ends, — in spite of animalism, ignorance, prejudice, — in 
spite of selfish prepossessions and wilful ambitions, 
which are permitted to declare themselves without dis- 
guise, that the new order may win its way in no illusive 
success. 

It is apparently because ultimate success, in spite of 
initial resistance, is a necessary mark of divine revela- 
tion, that so much is made in Scripture of the oppor- 



280 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

tuneness of tlie Christ's coming. The Light shining in 
darkness prevails within a certain range, or it would not 
shine at all. Its period is not that of impenetrable 
chaos. When the preparation was fulfilled, then the 
ruling order began to be manifest. The Saviour appeared 
in the company of the expectant, the people of alternat- 
ing hope and fear, who looked for " the acceptable year 
of the Lord," yet dreaded " the day of vengeance " of 
their God. Unobtrusively, he entered, not at the mas- 
sive gates of Jerusalem, but into the lowly tents of 
the wilderness. His disciples were gathered, not from 
those whose worldly fortunes perplexed them with fear 
of change, but from simple people, whose aspirations, if 
not very intelligent or very high, were at least so genu^ 
ine as to admit of correction in the progress of their 
faith. His beatitudes were not for those most flatter- 
ingly circumstanced, but for those even under the great- 
est outward adversities, who were ready for the most 
devoted co-operation with the reign of God. For, as the 
kind of work in which Jesus and his disciples were to 
be engaged implied the kind of suffering their faithful- 
ness would encounter, — so those were the blessed, in 
comparison with others, who were already disciplined in 
the common schooling of patience and fortitude. Such, 
having some preparation for their Christian conflict, would 
be apt to accept just pains, while shrinking with a true 
instinct from precipitate and bootless sacrifices. 

The few docile spirits whom the Forerunner's words 
had pointed to the new Teacher, found a ready access to 
his intimacy, and were very soon made partners of his 
more general ministry. They became his personal fol- 
lowers, his family and school, chosen and trained that 
they might duly apprehend the moving principle and 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST, 281 

ultimate aim of his work, so as to bear a sufficiently ample 
and undiluted testimony of him to the world. For their 
sakes he sanctified himself that they also might be sanc- 
tified through the truth. As the Father sent him into 
the world, so he sent them. Meanwhile he took them 
with him as he went about doing good, that they might 
know what it would be to follow after him ; and taught 
them to see in his works of power and charity signs of 
greater works, that should mark the progress of his reign 
in all the world. There was in him a mystery of per- 
sonal force to quell opposition and to command observ- 
ance, and an equal mystery of moderation and meekness 
in appealing only to the reasonable confidence of men. 
" If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 
But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works : 
that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, 
and I in him." ^ The day's sights and the day's employ- 
ments were transfigured in his parables. Common things 
began to glow with a light from heaven, until the very 
senses, as well as the consciences, of men, were quickened 
to appreciate the economy of divine Goodness underneath 
what seemed before the dull routine of existence. But 
if contemporary processes and aspects of the divine reign 
were familiarly illustrated in parables, the fulfilment of 
law and the perfection of life found expression in the 
Sermon on the Mount. Life was to reach its fulness 
according to no worldly ideal, but simply in the com- 
munion of infinite Love. " Be ye therefore perfect, even 
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect j"^ this is 
real perfection — the eternal life. 

The imperfection of the passing existence then, as now, 
was not shown in a lack of time-honored maxims and 

1 John X. 37, 38. 2 Matt. v. 48. 



282 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

wholesome regulations, but rather in false distinctions 
and inadequate conceptions. Sayings handed down from 
elder times were perversely employed to limit or to sup- 
press the active moral inspiration of living men. The 
spirit of law was sacrificed to an arbitrary construction 
of particular commandments. ''Thou shalt not kill;" 
" thou shalt not commit adultery ; " " thou shalt not for- 
swear thyself," — did such requirements signify that the 
avoidance of crime is the sum total of moral duty, and 
so make void the fundamental law on which all special 
prohibitions depend ? Is not the law of divine benevo- 
lence abrogated when the demand that man should love 
his neighbor is held to imply the distinction of for- 
eigners or enemies whom it is lawful to hate ? Can man 
be perfect in the love of God, who is not at one with 
Him in hating nothing that He hath made ? But let 
men apprehend the universal Love as working from the 
very beginning in all human experience, throwing up 
betimes certain legal ramparts to guide and restrain the 
individual action in its progress toward an end; and 
then they might the more readily apprehend the end 
contemplated, might see the law fulfilled in the Christ. 
Could the inspiration of righteousness proceed from any 
source, or know any end, but the creative Goodness ? 
Could rational worship contemplate anything less than 
harmony of spirit and action with the divine character ; 
or, aspire to anything more ? Was the righteousness of 
the Father the poor forensic ruling that could know 
only the literal bond ? Was it not the unity of all di- 
vine attributes, transcending all temporary judgments, 
extending tokens of good-will to the evil and the un- 
thankful, that evil might be overcome with good, and 
disappear in the fulness of life ? 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 283 

At any rate, the Son of God kindled in his disciples a 
zeal for human beings according to what he declared to 
be possible with God in their eternal life. He recog- 
nized the ideal end of life in life's beginning. To him 
the Alpha and Omega of human development were in- 
dissolubly bound together in one organic whole. He 
apprehended the consummation sought as involving the 
progress to be achieved, the instant motive and act as 
having their integrity in the end to which they were 
subservient. He sought to mould human efforts by the 
faith of a divine purpose, which solicited and made use 
of them. In this way he animated society with a virtue 
superior to traditions, and called to sacrifices that were 
more than symbols, — the very actions and proofs of 
devotion. The so-called administration of justice, which 
seeks the protection of society by the punishment of 
offences according to special outward definitions, neces- 
sary as it may be, is an administration by which justice 
is missed even in the fulfilment of law. The divine law 
has a nobler purpose, if not a costlier method : — " But I 
say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse 
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye 
may be the children of your Father which is in heaven ; 
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." ^ 
This is the law which holds eternally to its moral end. 
It brings the goal of perfection into the method of devo- 
tion. It contemplates the triumph of justice as depend- 
ing upon the sufferings of the faithful more than upon 
punishment of the disobedient ; and supersedes the mere 
pain even of punitive infliction, by a sense of fatherly 

1 Matt. V. 44. 45. 



284 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

discipline for the sake of complete reconciliation. The 
Spirit of holiness in possession of a consecrated body, — 
here at last is the living Temple and the Hving Sacrifice. 
To preach righteousness in the great congregation, to 
find supreme delight in doing the Father's will, to reveal 
the infinite Love in a service which lays all finite re- 
sources upon its altar, to proclaim the glad tidings, — 
all that God can promise and all that man can enjoy, 
" not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after 
the power of indissoluble life," ^ — such was the Messi- 
anic calling. The High Priest of universal nature was 
to realize the fulness of truth in the fulness of grace, the 
fulness of peace in the fulness of righteousness. 

Of course, m the atoning struggle it was not for the 
Christ or for his followers to doubt the efficiency of their 
spiritual testimony because it encountered a natural 
opposition, nor to be diverted from the fight of faith in 
order to take up the arms of a worldly warfare. Eather 
let them welcome afflictions in the flesh, — turning the 
other cheek to the smiter, outdoing in benevolence the 
measure even of unjust exactions, communicating in 
good things with such as are disposed to render only 
evil things in return ; that they may overcome evil with 
good. It is the glory of the end that demands and sus- 
tains the self-devotion of the service. Not political 
economy, not social equity by standards of common law, 
not how perfect beings will live together when there is 
no more knowledge of evil, — the teaching of the Christ 
is how to redeem the world from the bondage of its own 
traditions and habits, that men may come to the service 
which is perfect freedom. 

It was the Christ's self-devotion that gave practical 

1 Heb. vii. 16. 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 285 

embodiment and efficiency to his doctrine, and proved 
him the perfect Mediator of all needed changes in the 
convictions and conduct of mankind. The motions of 
life began to be referred to the true centre and law 
of spiritual attraction. Attention to matters of every- 
day existence was both humbled and exalted by being 
brought into just dependence upon the Father, who in 
his righteousness was ruling the spiritual orbit of hu- 
manity with its unknown times and seasons. Physical 
suffering and death fell into nothingness by comparison 
with the glory and triumph of the immortal Man. But 
as making for this glory and triumph, suffering rose to a 
significance comporting with the majesty of Truth, and 
testimony reached its consummation in martyrdom. As 
the Eevelation, most needed on account of its necessary 
superiority to natural tendencies, would, for the same 
reason, excite the most violent reaction on the part of 
the unenlightened ; so the chief witness in such a reve- 
lation was the predestined victim, that he might become 
the all-sufficient illuminator of mankind. From the 
very foundation of the world, there was before him a 
baptism of suffering. From the very beginning of his 
earthly ministry, he labored under a sense of how slight 
was the testimony of word and act, how faint were the 
successive scintillations of light and heat from within, 
compared with the final apocalypse of Love, — his dying 
for the world. If he had not stirred the world to mor- 
tal resistance, had he sufficiently vindicated the change 
which divine Love would work in the world's ways? 
Must he not suffer as it behooved that the Christ should 
suffer, that he might enter into his glory ? 

Hence that very striking representation of the Evan- 
gelists, that the Saviour was ever counting upon his 



286 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

cross as the indispensable medium of his revelation in 
the souls of men. As the faithful of the old dispensa- 
tion could not fully know what their own lives meant 
till the promised Messiah had fulfilled his cycle in the 
flesh, so the most intimate disciple of the Christ had to 
watch the mystery of his incarnation to its close, in 
order to apprehend its secret. Whither will he finally 
lead ? This is the question which concerns a faith that 
shall be loyal to the end. The sovereign Eeality must 
be discovered in order that faith may consciously hold 
its own. Assurances most simply phrased are realized 
only in the events to which they refer; and germs of 
grace lie hid in the comparative sterility of nature, till 
the chill and darkness are dispersed, and the spiritual 
atmosphere is pervaded with the regenerating power. 

The chosen disciples cannot come to the fulness of their 
apostleship while the Master is laying restrictions upon 
their speech, lest by unauthorized outgivings they should 
hinder the just impression of his own ministry. It re- 
quires all their patience and submission to wait for what 
they are taught to feel they cannot know at present; 
and no personal sympathy can restrain the words of 
rebuke and disenchantment which the faithful Teacher 
addresses to those who are flattering themselves with a 
mistaken notion of what the way of perfection is. How 
shall disciples learn that pre-eminence in his kingly court 
is no prize of vulgar ambition ? The serious young ruler, 
coming in the charm of moral aspiration and prosperous 
virtue, willing to know what is yet lacking to his des- 
tiny, how shall he overcome a natural reluctance at 
parting with great possessions for the sake of the poor, 
and at taking up the cross for the sake of his Leader, 
before that Leader shall by his own example have trans- 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 287 

figured the niggediiess of sacrificial experience in the 
light of eternal life ? Or Peter himself, can he follow 
his Lord in the final trial, before he has been taught by 
what manner of dying he is to glorify God ? 

There is one law of self-sacrifice in reconciling the 
world to the Father, — the law of the Father's love. " It 
is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and 
the servant as his Lord." ^ But what is enough for the 
Master ? What but that majestic condescension, which 
is sufficient to make disciples of all nations ? If the 
faithful need to see their perfection in a practical exam- 
ple of goodness upon earth, what shall determine the 
nature of that example, if not the purpose of penetrat- 
ing the darkness, and subduing the unbelief, that rejects 
the just One, repudiates his Sonship and his reign, and 
owns no king but Caesar? Is it not in the nature of 
things that the power of darkness should have its hour ? 
Is it not of temporary necessity that the established un- 
belief, rather than the infirm faith, should measure the 
difficulty, and graduate the cost of bringing men to ac- 
knowledge the truth ? Must there not come the critical 
conflict, the decisive moment, in the Father's struggle 
with his erring children ? They know neither the Father 
nor the Son. " They know not what they do." But 
when their deed is done, its character shall forevermore 
be recognized. As a general, intent upon victory such 
as shall be followed by final peace, tries the strength 
of his antagonist, compelling him to unmask his posi- 
tions and deploy his forces, that the conclusive action 
may take place, so the Captain of salvation, with equal 
prudence and courage, tried the thoughts, dispositions, 
and tempers of men, conciliating the simple and candid 

» Matt. X. 25. 



288 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

people, and in that very fact exciting the envy and con- 
solidating the opposition of the hypocritical and design- 
ing, until the contradiction of sinners against himself 
was uttered in the desperate fervor of embattled hostil- 
ity. Then he said : " Father, the hour is come ; glorify 
thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." 

To save the King from his suffering was to save him 
from his glory. What remained, therefore, but that 
spiritual power and worldly forces should do their re- 
spective works, according to that historic economy of 
moral freedom and responsibility in which the will of 
the Father had unchangeably declared itself ? It was 
for the injustice that proved the extremity of man's 
spiritual need to dictate the suffering that should prove 
the sufficiency of the Father's love. It is this reconcil- 
ing condescension of God to man in the person of his 
Son, which is the motive and assurance of man's recon- 
ciliation with God. This is called the Atonement, by way 
of eminence. For until the love of the Father be brought 
to one focus of revelation ; until the world is lighted up 
with truth and righteousness, with the certainty that 
every man shall in the long account receive according to 
what he hath done, yet with an equal assurance of pa- 
tience, pity, pardon, persuading to what man ought to do, 
— the universal gospel is not announced. Faith can only 
linger expectantly about the old altars till the supreme 
sacrifice is offered. But once it is offered, the offermg 
is once for all : the " right, reasonable, ratified, and ac- 
ceptable " reality of God's possession of man and man's 
communion with God, for all ages of redemptive effort, 
as well as the assurance of immortal felicity in the heav- 
enly reign. The central fact of Christian remembrance 
embodies the ruling idea of Christian worship, according 



LAW FULFILLED IN THE CHRIST. 289 

to a collect in the Eoman Missal : " Almighty, everlast- 
ing God, who hast ordained thine only-begotten Son to 
be the Eedeemer of the world, and wast pleased to be 
reconciled unto us in his blood ; grant unto us, we be- 
seech thee, so to venerate with solemn rite the price of 
our redemption, and to be on earth so defended by its 
power from the evils of the present life, that we may 
rejoice in its perpetual fruit in heaven." ^ 

1 Collect for Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent. 



19 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

IMMEDIATE SEQUEL OF THE CHRIST'S INCARNATE 
MINISTRY. 

IT remains to notice briefly what, according to the 
New Testament, immediately followed the fulfilment 
of the redeeming ministry which has been sketched. 

If the Word of regeneration had been uttered, what 
proofs of new life disclosed themselves ? If with their 
Master's resurrection his prophetic testimony with re- 
spect to his personal pre-eminence and effective media- 
tion came to completeness and coherency in the minds 
of the disciples, — did the same testimony begin to ver- 
ify itself in the convictions and experience of society in 
general ? 

The apostolic witnesses regard the world from one 
point of view, — that of its redemption by the Christ. 
The new faith at once evinced a majesty of moral pur- 
pose and a clearness of intellectual outline to awe the 
world. In spite of infirmities of the flesh and limita- 
tions of the letter, in spite of apparent odds against 
them, the apostles gave a testimony to their Master, 
which is the very spirit and ideal of prophecy in man. 

The oneness of space, the unity of creation, the fact 
that every house is builded by some man, inferring the 
transcendent fact that the cosmical dwelling-place is the 



IMMEDIATE SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 291 

building of God, — ideas common to both scientific and 
theological thought, — afforded a natural ground for the 
moral argument that men should be of one mind in the 
great house ; in fine, that God was reconciling the world 
unto himself, through a discipline of free personal devo- 
tion, whose great Apostle and High Priest had passed 
into the heavens to appear in the presence of the Father 
on behalf of mankind. In his light men saw light. 
Atonement was seen to be the law of life, the cross the 
banner of redemption, resurrection the type of immortal- 
ity, sacraments and formulas of faith the symbols of sac- 
rifice ending in triumph. The war-worn hosts of faith, 
from first to last, were thus at one with their Leader in 
welcoming the afflictions of a life that cannot endure, as 
working out for them the incomparable glory of Hfe that 
cannot decay. ^ 

If there were anticipations of an early and sensible 
reappearance of the risen Christ in power and great 
glory, there was nevertheless an assurance that the reign 
of God was deep within, — that it was righteousness, 
peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. This interior reign, 
inspiring the hopes and directing the movements of the 
faithful servants and soldiers of the Christ, made them 
at the same time mighty, for the pulling down of 
strongholds. Things that could be shaken began to 
disappear, in order that realities which could not be 
shaken might abide. The phenomenal world was merely 
the shifting scenery of a spiritual drama, whose succes- 
sive actions were to illustrate the creative Eeason. 

Man's sonship, man's filial relation to God, as revealed 
in the well-beloved Son, and affirmed in the regenerate 
experience of his disciples, was the reality that overruled 

1 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18. 



292 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

all diversities of race, nationality, culture, or condition. 
With the faithful there was neither Greek nor Jew, cir- 
cumcision nor uncircumcision. Barbarian, Scythian, bond 
nor free ; but Christ was all and in all. This spiritual 
indissolubleness of humanity as a whole, in virtue of 
which the Eedeemer had tasted death for every man, 
demanded the same devotion and vicariousness in suf- 
fering on the part of all his followers. If the sinless 
One had suffered for the unrighteous, that he might rec- 
oncile them to God, with what self-abandonment, yea, 
with what revenge toward themselves, might not those 
once sinners, but now reconciled, give their testimony of 
sacrifice to the Prince of Martyrs, who had won them to 
his devotion ? Were they incorporate in the church, the 
very body of their head, — for what was this growing 
body intended, but for the long passion, wherein the 
body that is broken and disappears is given for the life 
and nourishment of the body that shall be ? How other- 
wise could they know the fellowship of the Christ's suf- 
ferings, or come to the fulness of his joy ? Yet, as the 
passion of the Lord, by being the perfect consecration in 
the fulness of times, reached the most decisive testimony 
to the truth in the shortest period of suffering, so in the 
feebler and longer self-sacrifice of his church there was 
the assurance of faith that the best obedience and devo- 
tion was the way of least pain and loss. 

The reign of God, as revealed in the Christ and appre- 
hended by the faithful, showed the past and the future 
of human history under the same prophetic illumina- 
tion. Every development of good owned its debt to a 
previous struggle with evil ; and every struggle with evil 
could count with assurance upon an ensuing develop- 
ment of good. Heaven was no longer merely the anti- 



IMMEDIATE SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 293 

thesis of earth; nor was the eternal life exclusive of 
temporal existence. The finite was pervaded by the In- 
finite. They sat together in heavenly places and in 
heavenly seasons, who came into vivid communion of 
spirit with the glorified Christ. On the other hand, 
omens of destruction were evermore relaxing the ener- 
gies of wickedness, and gehennas of fire were quench- 
lessly active in consuming the elements that deserved to 
perish. Wliatever the Captain of salvation was fighting 
against with the sword of his mouth, that he would 
infallibly destroy at last with the brightness of his 
presence. 

Indeed, the process of reconciliation could not but 
imply a correlative process of judgment. Amnesty, to 
be sure, was universal through the forbearance of God, 
that pardon might become personal and particular ac- 
cording to the dispositions of men. But the day was 
also one of judgment in righteousness. There was a dis- 
cerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart. There 
was a discrimination between the ignorant word against 
the Son of man — the sin against an outward majesty in 
humility, that might be condoned under a general econ- 
omy of condescension — and the blasphemy against the 
Holy Spirit, the sin against the clear inward evidence of 
truth and goodness, which, unrepented of, is eternally 
incompatible with forgiveness and reconciliation. Thus 
the true discipleship was not in word, not in dogmatic or 
ritualistic profession, but in sincerity of spirit, — inward 
conviction being the organic law of outward expression ; 
and the unity of the church was the unity of one body 
and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God 
and Father of all, who is above all, through all, in all.^ 

1 Eph. iv. 3-6. 



294 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

The Christian faith, as it apprehended the way of uni- 
versal consecration, so it repudiated all trust in merely- 
conventional sanctities. Life's resources, nature, works, 
days, were not to be divided between God and rival 
claimants ; but were all summed up in the tribute of 
thankful praise to the giver of all. If " holiness to the 
Lord" was not written upon the bells of the horses 
according to the letter of the old prophecy, it had no 
need to be literally written anywhere. The meaning of 
the prophecy was fulfilled in the Christian service. The 
worship of God was ever passing into the service of man ; 
the service of man into the worship of God. The high- 
est spiritual function was not alien to the lowliest of 
household offices ; and the humblest Christian was joined 
with his Lord in the universal priesthood of humanity. 
The service of God on earth was one with the service 
of God in heaven. The veil before the face of all peo- 
ples, hiding from them the inner sanctuary which 
they desired to enter, was withdrawn, and through 
the Christ the way into the holiest of all was made 
manifest. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews is the account of how 
Judaism was transfigured in Christianity : Jesus, the 
High Priest, not of a nation or of an age, but of humanity 
forever ; the cross his altar ; his own body the victim of 
his perfect devotion ; his flesh the veil, withdrawn when 
he passed once for all from the holy tabernacle of his 
earthly ministry to the most holy sanctuary of his in- 
visible service ; his blood the redemption from the bond- 
age of the old dispensation; his intercession the assurance 
of eternal life and peace under the new covenant; his 
complete revelation the antitype and fulfilment of all 
that had been foreshadowed in the law, or in the prophets. 



IMMEDIATE SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 295 

With Jesus the altar-language rose from the dead. It 
too, was henceforth spirit and life. 

And now the faithful of the Gentiles were fellow- 
citizens and fellow-heirs with the believing Jews in one 
household of God. All rehgions had given token of cer- 
tain common elements of faith and hope; and all had 
made their sign in a sacrificial cipher which they could 
not adequately mterpret. For all the cross of the Ee- 
deemer was the key to the cipher, and his religion its 
final interpretation. The apostle to the Gentiles was 
determined to know nothing among them but the Christ 
— crucified and risen from the dead. 

Finally, as the era of consummation had set in, and 
the reign of God in man was without assignable limits 
of duration, whether in the past or in the future, it was 
natural for faith to prefigure the glory to be revealed. 
The prophetic promise of consummation v/as that the Ee- 
deemer should " see of the travail of his soul," and should 
"be satisfied." ^ The unity and universality of the 
Father's law — what but that could be the satisfaction 
of the Son ? Accordingly, St. Paul sums up his ultimate 
anticipation in these words : " Then cometh the end, 
when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, 
even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, 
and all authority and power. For he must reign until 
he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death. And when all things 
shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also him- 
self be subject unto him that put all things under him, 
that God may be all in all." ^ 

1 Isa. liii. 11. 2 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. 



PART SIXTH. 

CRISES IN THE PEOCESS OF REDEMPTION. 



" Now is the judgment [crisis] of this world." 

John xii. 31. 



*' The times of ignorance, therefore, God overlooked ; "but now 
he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent : in- 
asmuch as he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the 
world (rrjv olKovfievrjv) in righteousness, by the man whom he hath 
ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that 

he hath raised him from the dead." 

The Acts, xvii. 30, 31. 



'' That but this blow 
Might be the be-all and the end-all here, 
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, — 
We 'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases, 
We still have judgment here." 

Shakspeare : Macbeth, Act i. Scene 7. 



PAKT SIXTH. 

CRISES IN THE PROCESS OF REDEMPTION. 



CHAPTEK I. 

OF JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT. 

THE justice of God towards mankind is very com- 
monly contemplated in its relation to the punish- 
ment of sin. The revelation of divine justice in nature, 
on the other hand, evinces a primary and persistent 
reference to the development of virtue. 

Whatever the uneasy conscience may at any time 
forebode, — the fact is that the Creator is apprehended 
as a just God, because he reveals himself as Eedeemer 
and Saviour. Moreover, he reveals himself as Eedeemer 
and Saviour in the judicial determinations, as well as 
in the reconciling efforts of his government. By his 
judgments he enforces the just appeals of self-sacrificing 
condescension in favor of righteousness; while conde- 
scension, patience, pardon, inasmuch as they are notes 
of a redemptive process, give unmistakable assurance of 
judgments that are to ensue with reference to the prac- 
tical workings of a dispensation of grace. Grant that all 
man's faculties shall move, without fret or friction, in 
obedience to divine inspiration as soon as man is made 
perfect in love ; such a spiritual consummation does not 



\ 

300 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

depend alone upon the law of atonement, but just as 
really upon crises of individual and collective experience. 
These crises are judgments of God, evermore abroad in the 
creation, by which the people learn what is right. The 
official effort and legal apparatus of advanced society for 
the protection of rights and the punishment of crimes is 
simply proof of the deeper administration of justice per- 
vading our world-ages, by the law of nature, for man's 
moral development. 

Parts of divine revelation require the whole. The 
depths of self-sacrifice in the crisis of atonement can- 
not dispense with the heights of dignity and authority 
in the crisis of judgment. The former may be spoken 
of as the depths of mercy, the latter as the heights of 
justice ; but mercy is not mercy apart from justice, and 
justice is not justice apart from mercy. The quahty of 
the part cannot be grounded or constituted except in the 
character of the whole. 

Atonement and judgment are actions contemplating 
the same end. Therefore, if the consummate effort of 
atonement fail of its proper effect in any upon whose 
attention it is pressed, what follows for them ? Not a 
greater sacrifice for sin; not another incarnation and 
passion of the Christ, but " a certain, fearful expectation 
of judgment." ^ The fatherly grace, that keeps the door 
of reconciliation and righteousness eternally open to 
the repentant offender, does not shrink from the use 
of wholesome severity; but awakens to repentance by 
making betimes a judicial distinction between opposing 
moral dispositions. 

Hence it is that the judicial aspects of the world's re- 
demption — the crises wherein the judgments of God 
1 Heb. X. 26, 27. 



JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT, 301 

disclose themselves in nature, so as to find a record 
and interpretation in Scripture, — demand a distinct 
consideration. 

To believe that the judgments of God ensue eternally 
upon things done according to their innermost spirit and 
total quahty is to renounce our own interested partiali- 
ties and illusive forecastings in favor of those larger and 
better conceptions, that are gauged for us by words 
which stand for the most devout human insight put to 
service in the admmistration of revered law. The word 
judgment stands for a sacred function in which man 
becomes the sworn and consecrated minister of God. 
But the word judgment, as the expression for a personal 
function, is affiliated with the word crisis, which contem- 
plates a judicial decision, to be sure, but with special ref- 
erence, in our language, not to personal function, but to 
general and immanent law. Thus, when it is said of a 
sick man that he must certainly die, or that he is very 
likely to recover, the saying may have special reference 
to the judgment of the physician, or to the crisis of the 
disease. But the professional judgment is held to de- 
pend upon the immanent law in the case ; and the two 
combine in one conviction of truth. . A catastrophe in 
nature, or revolution in history, is possibly pointed out 
as a crisis with respect to the laws according to which 
interior forces have acted together in producing a sud- 
den result ; but when referred to the divine thought and 
governance conceived as laying up the possibility or cer- 
tainty of such a result in the constitution of things, the 
same fact is called 2^ judgment. It depends simply upon 
the relation of thought designed to be made prominent, 
whether we speak of our late civil war as a crisis in the 
national history or as a judgment of the universal Kuler. 



302 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Similarly in the New Testament Greek, the word crisis is 
so penetrated with the faith of God's personal intention 
as to be generally rendered judgment in the New Tes- 
tament English : and this though the reference be ex- 
pressly to transactions, not as belonging in any peculiar 
sense to the high court of heaven, but as taking place in 
the natural order of events here below. 

The judgment of God is conceived as determining the 
crisis of events, the crisis of events as expressing the 
judgment of God. We do not disengage the elements of 
thought, or dissolve the reality of things, by the differ- 
ent terms we employ. We have simply a rational free- 
dom in the use of terms, that the various phases of one 
ever-unfolding Providence may be represented with more 
accurate shading. 



CHAPTEE II. 

CRISES UNDER LAWS OF PHYSICAL CHANGE. 

THE two words, crisis and judgment, with their 
substantial oneness of meaning, suggest what ex- 
perience confirms, namely, that vicissitudes, even the 
most sudden and unlooked-for, are due to imperceptible 
processes of change, in which all finite and arbitrary 
intention is merged and overruled. Personal existence 
is embarked upon the stream of general being. The 
individual life, that seems to have a current of its own, 
is shooting through the larger current of society. The 
general tendencies or sudden checks of a nation's career 
affect each citizen ; and still the citizens go their several 
ways, occupy themselves with their own affairs, antici- 
pating, it may be, in a passive and helpless way, the 
crises that are coming to impress a new movement and 
character, as upon the mass so upon every atom compos- 
ing the mass. 

Men trust themselves to general tendencies, though 
aware that tendency means vicissitude also. Nature 
shows us many movements that run a certain round ; 
but the round is a round of changes. Gradual prepa- 
ration is often turning to precipitate conclusion. Quiet 
evaporation from a world of waters, and clouds that 
float in air make their report in drops or crystals that 



304 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

of a sudden begin to fall upon the earth. And, again, 
a silent change of temperature makes its sign in the 
sudden turning of water into ice. Strange that, by 
change of temperature or possibly by mere evaporation, 
an apparently homogeneous fluid should by and by un- 
dergo a sudden reconstitution according to mysterious 
affinities and mathematical definitions ; as if the creative 
spirit were moving in the turbid waters of the chemist's 
laboratory, exactly as the Spirit of God is said to have 
moved upon the face of the weltering world in the be- 
ginning ! The laws of crystalhzation are mysterious ; 
but the crisis of crystallization is unmistakable. At the 
end of the process the fiat is pronounced. 

The crust of our globe gives distinct chap'ters of its 
own history, written out in successive geological forma- 
tions. Each chapter records the progress to its comple- 
tion of a definite cosmical movement. The story becomes 
peculiarly impressive, we are told, when it reaches the 
period of organic remains. As the earth is moulded and 
tempered to fitness for living things, a vast populace of 
plants and animals swarms into possession. But the 
work of creation, complete as to certain ends, had still 
other ends in view ; and, moving on toward those ends, 
nature is found by and by to have passed the fatal 
bourn for the primitive orders of animated existence. 
They had had their day, and were doomed to disappear. 
It only remained to give them a worthy burial while 
compassing their gradual but necessary extinction. 

Yet the change was not so gradual as to fail of indi- 
cating a crisis. We are even assured of a marked dis- 
tinction between the earlier and the later stone age. The 
palaeolithic man was a very different creature from the 
neolithic man ; and the two inhabited different worlds. 



CRISES OF PHYSICAL CHANGE. 305 

It is asserted that the palaeolithic inhabitant made his 
mark in art ; that carved representations distmguish his 
career, such as are entirely wanting among all discovered 
relics of his neolithic successors. The art of that early 
race was buried with it ; and the next human effort was 
put forth with reference to new conditions of life. Thus 
a crisis — something to be called the end or consumma- 
tion of an age, a last judgment of the world as respects 
a clearly distinguishable phase of its history — is recog- 
nized as a recurring fact, and has passed into a scientific 
conception, from dateless depositions that have been 
only recently deciphered. 

We judge of what shall be from what has been. In- 
ductions shape and color anticipations. The human 
mind is constituted to discredit prophesyings that are 
alien to the logic of history. There is nothing, however, 
in which men believe more easily, in a theoretical way, 
than in judgments to come. The sun is still rejoicing 
" as a giant to run his course ; " but it is easy to believe 
that his strength is not infinite. The winds and waters 
that carry on the distribution of our shifting soil are 
never still. The volcanic energy that has buttressed the 
globe may be counted upon for new activities. Atlantis 
may rise again from the bosom of the deep, and conti- 
nents be invaded by the ocean. 

" There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
There where the long street roars hath been 
The stillness of the central sea." 

The crisis of a measureless prehistoric period is a mat- 
ter of rational inference from subsequent observations. 
The same slow movement of material nature goes on 

20 



306 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

through all historic ages, and only gives vague hints of 
change to the watchers of a passing day. The solar sys- 
tem might pass from original star-dust to star-dust again, 
and the agitations be so tempered and distributed that 
the human race should come forth to life, fulfil its phys- 
sical cycle, and be consummated in personal immortality, 
with a prevailing experience of order and quietness in 
nature. As human annals do not reach back to the 
beginning of geological history, so, it may be presumed, 
they cannot reach forward to the end. Earth's mortal 
pangs, the denouement and dissolution of matter, are 
likely to outlast the drama of man's mortal history. In 
the mean time occasional floods and fiery storms, a few 
formidable earthquakes, exceptional instances of brusque 
fatality, readily compose themselves to the common 
course of things, and exert but a moderate influence 
upon the thoughts of men. Yet the immovable fact 
remains, that the law of change is deeply interfused and 
all-pervading, and that living things must go as well as 
come in subordination to vast economies of existence, 
throughout a duration that has no assignable limits. 
The great globe itself, so generously submitted for their 
time to the ruling of its temporary occupants, is reserved 
and remade for other generations, who will take it in 
their turn ; and this consideration is one of moment in 
the intellectual and moral discipline of those who are 
stewards of their children's estates. That a natural 
crisis is rationally anticipated as likely to come upon 
descendants is evidence that the distributive justice of 
the universe will not fail to bring home a moral judg- 
ment to the fathers. 

Tell men, as some prophets do, that they are spoiling 
streams, filling up harbors, making their sea-coasts and 



CRISES OF PHYSICAL CHANGE. 307 

river-valleys malarious, — by foul debris lazily washed 
away, which ought to be prudently disinfected, and re- 
stored as a fertihzing substance to the ground, — and how 
do they act ? Possibly they smile at impracticable ideal- 
ism ; more probably they deprecate the evil tendency in 
a calm persuasion of their personal inability to with- 
stand it ; certainly they make themselves welcome to 
any solace derivable from " after us the deluge." How 
should the prophetic soul not take some hope from inter- 
mediate stages of trial, if a fatal conclusion cannot be 
reached to-day ? But rational forecast is not without 
assurance that the crisis which announces chaos come 
again, as well as the crisis of a new creation, will appear 
when due, and sum up all the elements of the case, 
whether for past or future, according to law. 

But man's effective discipline with respect to remote 
liabilities depends very much upon recurring experiences 
wherein the crisis of natural retribution follows close 
upon a crisis of personal effort. Seed-time and harvest 
are correlative crises separated by no inappreciable dura- 
tion. The duty of the first cannot be distributed over 
many days ; and the retribution of the second is not so 
far off that men can forget their accounts, or presume 
that the fruitful earth will not render to every man 
according to his works. When the harvest reckoning 
is complete the judgment of the year is declared. The 
crisis may be one of joy or distress ; but either way 
it is the ruling fact. Be it great Eome herself that is 
anxiously awaiting the corn-ships from Alexandria, the 
ships can bring only so much corn as the year's produc- 
tion allows. 

Who shall tell what man's prudence, promptitude, and 
co-operation owe to the order of material nature ? The 



308 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

assurance that mother Earth will pay her debts to human 
endeavor, as well as exact her penalties for negligence 
and misdoing, with peremptory and critical exactness, 
what does it signify — or, rather, what does it not sig- 
nify — in relation to that credit accorded to promises of 
payment by which men facilitate the exchange of ser- 
vices with one another ? All promises to pay are distin- 
guished from promises to pay nothing, by contemplating 
a crisis of maturity, — a day of decisive judgment as to 
how much the promise is worth. 



CHAPTER III. 
CRISES UNDER LAWS OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. 

A S in tlie material world ultimate atoms and occult 
"^ ^ energies are making continual contributions, to be 
summed up in ulterior consummations, so the secret and 
momentary actions of the human spirit become apprecia- 
ble in successive crises of personal and social experience. 
The most sudden and radical change in history, — what 
is it but the summing up under creative superintendence 
of instantaneous personal impulses and efforts, whose 
result is at length registered so — and not otherwise. 

Grant that matter and spirit are as different in kind 
as fixed fate and free-will ; yet the world of spiritual 
powers is like the world of physical forces in this : there 
is no possible escape of particular elements from the 
sway of universal law. Hence it is that personal will, 
though constituted to be the very type of freedom as of 
power, is practically checked and restrained, until by 
means of intelligent judgment and loyalty to moral con- 
victions it makes its way to the liberty of law. Ulti- 
mate freedom of will is in that orbit of movement which 
never violates the harmony of the spiritual universe. 
Only in the lowest phase of spiritual development do 
we find those capricious oscillations of conduct that are 
made up from the two extremes of wilfulness and con- 



310 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

straint, which always accompany each other. Not that 
we are to charge the fits and starts of an unschooled 
nature to the account of the will alone. Why blame the 
executive power especially for capricious and tentative 
movements that accuse the immaturity of the legislative 
and judicial faculties ? 

Childhood's inadequacy to self-government is general. 
A similar inadequacy belongs to the childhood of peoples. 
The less endowed and less disciplined races meet the 
crisis of their fate in the touch of a potent civilization. 
Populations that can neither resist successfully the force 
brought to bear upon them, nor accommodate them- 
selves kindly to novel situations that arise under the 
control of their superiors, are judged accordingly. There 
must be an irresistible logic in history, if history is to be 
the vehicle of a teaching not to be mistaken. The trial 
and decision of to-day must lead on to the trial and 
decision of to-morrow. Some ruling motive that is sim- 
ple and universal must prove that political and military 
combinations are not fortuitous, and teach us to refer 
provisional arrangements to a permanent principle of 
human action. 

The crises of nations are in general too limited in 
spiritual scope to exhibit, in the broadest light, the 
reality of a universal judgment in the history of man- 
kind. For proof of this we need to look at the general 
progress of society, and to see the course of the common 
life as irrespective of national boundaries, in a history 
well understood and easily sketched; and yet, a his- 
tory wherein a common faith in divine government, 
the deep religious tendency of the race is recognized 
as determining the plans of statesmen and the struggle 
of armies. 



CRISES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. 311 

What grand movement of the modern world gives a 
clearer account of itself than "the Keformation of the 
sixteenth century"? Define the movement as we may 
in space or time, we know that it surpasses our defini- 
tions ; while, on the other hand, the infinite complexity of 
personal aims and party interests cannot hide the simple 
issue in law that was on trial, nor nullify our sense of a ju- 
dicial direction that governed the procedure as a whole. 

The church of Luther's day was universal, in distinc- 
tion from national, — not universal as being adequate to 
the spiritual guidance of all men. Yet the church, ac- 
cording to her charter, contemplated a spiritual empire 
absolutely universal ; and was proudly conscious of the 
recognition accorded to her claims by the leading secular 
powers. But the real potency of the faith was held in 
check by a Hfeless crust of ecclesiastical tradition and 
routine. In spite of all restraints, however, there was a 
stirring of thought, an awakening of inquiry, a musing 
about what were the realities the church had so long 
been undertaking to represent ; and this mental motion 
was not without heat. The fire burned in the heart of 
Luther while he was musing. Then he spake with his 
lips — with his pen; and the secret was out. There was 
a remarkable response to his testimony. That fresh 
plant of righteousness named "justification by faith," — 
faith implying the certainty of sincere obedience to the 
truth embraced, — found a spiritual climate in which it 
could live and bear fruit. The old stalk of justification 
by pious works, on the contrary, as such works were 
understood and practised in the Eoman routine, was 
seen to be dried up and dying down to the ground. 

To the poor novice, in his convent of the Augustines, 
there came a crisis hardly less marked and decisive than 



312 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

that which overtook Saul of Tarsus on the road to Da- 
ruascus. Luther knew the letter of his New Testament 
better than almost anybody else ; for he had found its 
solid contents in the university, while clergy and laity as 
a rule were familiar with only fragments delivered in 
church. He had become a monk under the impulse 
of superstitious terror, and in defiance of his father's 
authority. Set to menial services, suffering insolence 
from the brotherhood, confessing every day, persecuted 
with penances, the submissive disciple treated the rough 
monastic tyranny as a kind of counter-irritant to the 
more tormenting trouble of his spirit about his relations 
with G-od. Xaturally, he fell sick in body also. In the 
repose of weakness, soothed by the wise counsels of the 
good Staupitz, he beheld the dawn. The sun arose with 
healing. Martin Luther found himself the elect of a 
fresh revelation. He became a man of God, with a mis- 
sion to the world. With G-od he was in the majority 
against any power that needed to be called in question. 

The monk's new initiative was as bold as his previous 
temper had been diffident. Ordained priest, he appealed 
to the Scriptures for the correction of the church ; made 
professor at Wittenberg, he threw off the shackles of 
scholastic philosophy; sent to Eome on business for his 
order, he brought the judgment of an unsophisticated 
conscience to bear upon that holy city, and gave warn- 
ing of the wrath to come ; unable to get redress for mani- 
fold abuses connected with the sale of indulgences, he 
nailed his ninety-five propositions to the Wittenberg 
church-door ; his writings burnt and himself excom- 
municated, he burned the bull of excommunication with 
retorted scorn ; summoned to the Diet of Worms, he 
stood unquailing before princes and emperor, and an- 



CRISES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT, 313 

swered witli such conscientious and uncompromising 
fidelity to his faith, that the muse of history delights to 
depict him in lowly garb before that tinselled and mag- 
nificent assembly, — the incomparable spiritual magnate 
of the hour. 

From the crisis in the monk's cell at Erfurth, we date 
the orderly and dramatic evolution of the reforming 
energy. That was a crisis of individual initiative, with 
respect to the characteristic spiritual movement of the 
time. 

As Luther's personal experience was not unconnected 
with a general awakening of thought and revival of learn- 
ing, — for there were reformers before the Eeformation,* — 
so, when the Eeformation was fairly inaugurated, it was 
to combine of necessity with all the thought and ten- 
dency of the age. Especially, the reformation in religion 
was to quicken the national spirit that in various coun- 
tries was feeling its way towards the emancipation 
of secular authority from ecclesiastical domination. 
Eichelieu, for example, as prince of the church, should 
have been a leading power in the Catholic league; 
but, as statesman and prime minister of France, he 
actually became an important ally of the Protestant 
cause. 

So it came to pass, exactly one hundred years after 
the nailing of Luther's theses to the church-door, that 
the Eeformation was on the eve of a general crisis, — the 
great military trial of its history. For thirty years 
(1618-1648) there raged a desultory but destructive 
warfare, that left Germany devastated through its whole 
extent. The question at issue was, not which league 
should win a permanent ascendency over the other ; but 
rather, whether both Catholics and Protestants should 



314 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

agree to live and let live. The decision was npon the 
whole in favor of the modern spirit, — in favor of the 
right to think, to speak, and so to seek the reforma- 
tion of the church, in its head or in its members, as well 
as the reformation of political institutions, in a sense 
favorable to populations in distinction from princes. 

This tedious struggle was far enough from exhibiting 
a dramatic unity of action, as has been intimated. But, 
on the other hand, it was not so incoherent that we may 
not reasonably point to the battle of Liitzen as the crisis 
of the war ; and certainly the death of Gustavus Adol- 
phus marked the crisis of Liitzen when, in the words of 
Schiller, " the battle already half lost was won over the 
king's corpse." 

Thus, without going beyond the proper range of the 
word, we find that one crisis in human experience is 
related to another. The crisis of personal conviction, 
of individual initiative, when the world's teaching is 
brought to a focus in the judgment of a single epoch- 
making man, looks forward to the crisis of a general 
movement, in which extensive combinations and persist- 
ent struggles submit to a decision that is for the time 
without appeal. We have only to generalize this dis- 
tinction, to remember that the epoch-making man, so 
called, is like every other human being ; that the world's 
teaching is brought to a focus, and determines an initi- 
ative, in every soul, according to the nature of the 
teaching and the nature of the soul ; and we rationally 
conclude, what we actually find to be the case, that the 
general judgment, the overruling determination in hu- 
man affairs, is the opening of a new trial, with further 
opportunities for men in detail. The government of the 
universal Euler is made to subserve, with perfect dis- 



CRISES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. 315 

crimination, the discipline of the universal Father tow- 
ard each one of his children in particular ; that every 
child may become in turn a loyal subject to the Sover- 
eign and Judge of all. 

Nor, as human society improves, does the work of re- 
generation cease. Personal determinations may grow 
more rational and less heated; general judgments may 
become less frequent and more significant. Yet even 
the apocalyptic millennium is not proof against the re- 
crudescence of evil. Peace on earth degenerating into 
careless security is the opportunity of adventurous wrong- 
doing. But when the strange challenge of evil awakens 
peaceful virtue to martial ardor, the struggle is brief 
and victory decisive. The judgment is most conclusive 
which has the greatest disciplinary effect. The infinite 
law works its way eternally in the limited powers of 
rational creatures, — cancelling errors and compensating 
pains. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

CRISES ACCORDING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING. 

T TISTOEY may be figured as the outer court, and 
■*■ -^ worship as the inner sanctuary, of universal real- 
ity. It is much that Anaxagoras or Hegel should ground 
philosophy on the assurance that the reason which we 
bring to the study of creation is a reflex of the Eeason 
according to which creation is carried on. But is it not 
much more that the same truth should live in the 
devout faith of mankind in general, a worshipful, though 
indefinable persuasion of one God, Author of all things ? 
It must be remembered, however, that religious convic- 
tion, as well as speculative assurance is realized through 
discipline; only the discipline of faith is in a much 
sterner school than that of philosophy. 

The Old Testament sets before us the career of a peo- 
ple raised to an express and incontestable primacy in the 
knowledge of God and the service of faith. In their 
history the oneness of God stood for the unity of nature. 
If there was one only Creator of things visible and in- 
visible, then from Him was the supernatural governance 
of nature as well as the original constitution of nature. 
Hence the gods of the heathen — the nature gods — fell 
down into the order of nature, and became no gods, — 
rather vanity and a lie. Jehovah, who made the heavens, 



CRISES TN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 317 

was Euler and Judge of all the earth; and the faith 
of his chosen people was to be ultimately the faith of 
mankind. 

But the unique service to which Israel was called of 
God, though a service of great dignity, involving the 
spiritual welfare of men in all ages, was no easy service. 
On the contrary, it seemed easy for the servants of Jeho- 
vah to be drawn aside into unprincipled complications 
with their idolatrous neighbors ; and their seducing 
neighbors became in turn the rod of Jehovah, when he 
awoke to judgment, and punished his people's unfaith- 
fulness to the covenant between him and them. Still, 
though often cast down, Israel was not destroyed. 
Though triumphant for a season, the hostile nations 
were by and by judged. The banner of hope was held 
up before the wayward and afflicted servants of Jehovah 
in the name of "Emanuel, God with us." When the 
lesson taught by the execution of judgment had been 
learned, then humiliating captivity gave way before a 
new fervor of faith, in the remnant that lived to see the 
day of deliverance. And so was made good the word 
of promise, that evermore pointed the moral and tem- 
pered the severity of prophetic denunciation : " Al- 
though I have cast them far off among the heathen, 
and although I have scattered them among the coun- 
tries, yet will I be to them a little sanctuary in the 
countries where they shall come." " I will even gather 
you from the people, and assemble you out of the coun- 
tries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you 
the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and 
they shall take away all the detestable things thereof, 
and all the abominations thereof, from thence. And I 
will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit 



318 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

within you ; and I will take the stony heart out of their 
flesh, and give them an heart of flesh : that they may 
walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do 
them : and they shall be my people, and I will be their 
God."i 

1 Ez. xi. 16-20 



CHAPTEE V. 

CRISES INTERPEETED BY THE CHRIST. 

nPHE New Testament opens to us the new era. It 
-■- announces the dispensation of the last times, the 
period of personal faith made free from external bonds, 
— the ultimate type of worship in the whole family of 
the Father. 

The doctrine of one God cannot, according to its own 
idea, be the permanent peculiarity of a smgle people, still 
less the mark of an intellectual class, — the contempla- 
tive and philosophic few. It is set forth in the New 
Testament as passing into the possession of all nations 
and all men, without respect of national or personal 
distinctions, through the revelation of one Mediator 
between God and man, namely, the Christ. The rude 
and magisterial ways of messengers and ministers that 
went before are held to have been judged and super- 
seded by the condescension, and brotherliness of the well- 
beloved Son. His function is unique. He can have no 
rival and no vicar. " One is your master, even the 
Christ," — this is the note of universal discipleship, — 
"and all ye are brethren." Principalities and powers, 
visible or invisible, are held to do homage of right to 
the redeeming Word of God. 

Here was announced a crisis of the world. Now was 
opening a new opportunity and a new trial of faith, — 



320 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

not for the Jews only. The personal initiative of the 
great Teacher was to be followed by personal determina- 
tions of men in all nations ; and general judgments were 
to declare themselves, that should herald the consumma- 
tion, not of that age only, but of all world-ages. What, 
then, is the Christ's conception of crises in history ? 
What is his doctrine and administration of judgment, as 
set forth by evangelists and apostles from his own lips ? 

The crises and judgments of this world are contem- 
plated in the New Testament as belonging to an eternal 
reign of righteousness. They have their appointed days, 
times, and seasons, — not to be known of men, because 
they are in the power of the Father, But they come in 
the process of divine revelation. God's ways are everlast- 
ing. The living Word, summing up all truth that has 
been or shall be in human experience, comes into contact 
with individual minds through a spiritual operation. 
Judgment begins in human consciousness at the house 
of God, in convictions of sin and righteousness that take 
possession of believers in the Christ ; but the absolute 
spiritual Authority moving the responsible action of en- 
lightened men, at length brings to pass a change, — a 
re-arrangement of human society, which points to what 
the relative end must be of those who obey not the 
gospel. 

As faith draws men into fellowship with the Christ's 
voluntary sufferings, so judgment, the vindication of 
faith, dooms the men of unbelief, who repudiate the law 
of self-sacrifice, to the punitive consequences of their 
voluntary doings. To Israel of old the faith of one God 
involved a life-long national discipline. So the faith of 
one Lord Jesus Christ involves a life-long personal, as 
well as social, discipline, to the spiritual Israel of God. 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 321 

The work of redeeming mankind from original earthly 
tendencies to the best spiritual possibilities, is one in 
which children in experience are taught to know the 
Father's patience and forgiveness, in the fact of his set- 
ting before them " an open door." None who desire it 
are ever excluded from the work and discipline of faith 
on account of past misdoings. But faith signifies work 
and discipline, — by no means a far-off felicity, having 
no respect to conduct. First and last, here and hereaf- 
ter, the judgment of God is ^' to every man according to 
his works." 

Yet in what utterance or action of the great Teacher 
does it appear that he ever looked for any change of per- 
sonal determination, or for any new cast of the world's 
moral drama, except under the law of universal reality ; 
that is, the will of the Father expressed in the constitu- 
tion of things ? Did redemption mean, in his thought, 
that established institutions and authorities would of a 
sudden lose all their original energy, and quietly abdi- 
cate their time-honored pretensions, as soon as a pro- 
phetic judgment should find them wanting, and doom 
them to pass away ? On the contrary, he counted upon 
their very falsities and oppressions to call into action 
the new spirit of righteousness, that should shatter the 
legality of the letter, when its measure of absurdity and 
iniquity should be full. He proposed to train his disciples 
in a struggle wherein the ideal energy would find both 
strength and correction from resistance of actual powers, 
that also had in them rudiments of divine wisdom, the 
guarantees of their provisional authority. The advanc- 
ing spiritual reign contemplated a method of change that, 
from age to age, was turning to practical account the 
dispositions and habits already contracted among men. 

21 



322 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Man's original constitution is recognized as including 
the subjective law of his transformation. Hence Jesus 
Christ, as the prophet of regeneration for all mankind, 
points out, according to strictly natural principles, the 
persons in whom the new life must come to conscious 
action earliest ; and through whom, consequently, it must 
make its initial effort on behalf of other men. Even the 
divine disclosure of personal perfection and universal 
hope does not abruptly overpower the natural motives 
in possession of human beings ; does not initiate the 
most far-reaching renovations of society, through men 
whose natural instincts as to what concerns their imme- 
diate interests render them distrustful of any change. 

The Sermon on the Mount is very explicit in this re- 
gard. The reign of God belongs effectively to those to 
whom it comes, in its higher aims, as a greater relief and 
refreshment than to others, — to those, in a word, who 
naturally feel the need of it, in consequence of the disci- 
pline through which they have already passed in their 
training for it. The candidates for immediate disci- 
pleship are not the rich, the self-satisfied, the men of 
the world, whose portion in this life has intoxicated 
them with ambitions and pleasures of a day, and dulled 
them to spiritual needs and immortal hopes. To such 
the reign of God announces no immediate blessedness. 
Prosperous selfishness has for its correction the judicial 
menace of woe, — the threat of loss and unwilling sacri- 
fice, in those judgments that shall dissolve the world 
that is, for the sake of the world that is to come. Mean- 
while, the meek, the merciful, the peace-making men, 
those hungering and thirsting after righteousness, those 
who have already realized what righteousness means, 
enough to be persecuted on account of it, — are the 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 323 

characters to whom the reign of God, with its voluntary 
sacrifices and eternal rewards, appropriately appeals. 

Yet, though as a rule the wise, mighty, or noble of 
the world were not at first effectually appealed to, but 
rather rebuked and repelled ; though the particular peo- 
ple for whom the great supper was prepared began with 
one consent to make excuse ; though a young man, as 
candid and lovable as he was rich, must needs go sor- 
rowfully away from the good Teacher, before he could 
learn that eternal life is not in exclusive possession, but 
in communicating love and redeeming service ; though it 
is natural for the poor to rejoice in that he is exalted, 
and not so natural for the rich to rejoice in that he is 
made low ; nevertheless, what is impossible with men is 
not impossible with God, and what seems unnatural with 
men may simply indicate the quality to be developed 
in human nature, — as men become spiritually inspired 
and practically taught of God. 

If natural motives were recognized as of critical sig- 
nificance in the Sermon on the Mount, with respect to 
that initial discipleship, which waited upon the humble 
teaching of the Christ, — the same motives do not lose 
their importance, as the truth moves on towards uni- 
versal supremacy, while the Son of man sits upon the 
throne of his glory, and all nations are gathered before 
him. Accordmgly, the judgment scene in the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Matthew sets before us, in grand classifications 
of character, and appropriate retributive distinctions, how 
the original struggles of the faith are to be regarded 
among men in the crises of its triumph. 

The history of redemption is an ideal assize. Sponta- 
neous choices, personal decisions that took form in acts 
when the actors knew not what they did, claims of di- 



324 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

vine justice and compassion listened to or rejected in the 
appeals of a common humanity, — all come up together 
for adjudication, according to the sum total of responsi- 
ble activity with respect to the divine revelation. " I 
was an hungered," says the exalted Christ, in the judicial 
majesty of human sympathy, "I was thirsty," "I was a 
stranger," " I was naked," " I was sick, and in prison ; " 
and such, or so different, was the treatment accorded to 
me. What but the judgment of times and ages can de- 
clare the essential quality and limitless reach of personal 
conduct ? What but the seonian retributions can bring 
home to the conscious experience of men the spiritual 
reign, which they dimly recognize or carelessly deny, 
but which it behooves them at any cost to appreciate 
and own ? 

To work with the Christ as one of his disciples and 
messengers, to share in the gracious efforts and glorious 
results of redemption ; or to array one's self with the 
adverse power, and partake of what is prepared for, as it 
is prepared by, the adversary and his angels, — such is 
the alternative before which the spiritual development of 
every man comes to its real significance. Human con- 
duct not only moves outward, to take effect upon the 
existing world of space, and to be affected in its turn ; it 
moves onward, also, to affect the successive ages of his- 
tory, and to be affected by them. The actions of men 
make or mar the seons ; but cannot defeat the asonian 
judgments, through which the works of men, in general 
and in particular, become their own inheritance. Per- 
sonal conviction carries within it the certainty of general 
judgment. Truth spoken in the ear and in closets is proof 
that the mighty secret shall come to light and publicity. 
The day when the universal church is born in the person 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 325 

of her Head, is the day when the ancient world is judged ; 
albeit the world is unconscious of the divine determina- 
tion, and will pass away not without a great noise. 

The spiritual crises contemplated in the New Test- 
ament impart their moral and coloring to outward 
conceptions, and help themselves to physical symbols. 
Apocalyptic visions are given for the encouragement and 
warning of the persecuted church. The pangs of earth 
draw attention and service from the armies of heaven. 
What seems a forlorn hope to the eye of sense becomes 
an assurance of victory to the eye of faith. The seer of 
Patmos apparently intended that it should be impossible 
to verify in detail the significance of his imposing and 
mysterious symbolism, and equally impossible to mis- 
take its general purport. The awe-inspiring crises that 
successively present themselves have one unmistakable 
meaning, — the vindication of righteousness in the pain- 
ful coercion of hostile forces, until all the perverse moral 
energy that enters into the power and state of the arch- 
adversary is defeated, and destructions come to a perpet- 
ual end, according to the universal justiqe of the great 
white throne, and Him that sat upon it.^ No martial 
imagery, no colors of blood and flame can blind the 
prophet to the inner reality of history, that men are 
judged, collectively and severally, ''according to their 
works." 

St. Peter has his apocalypse, as well as St. John. He 
foresaw the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly 
men, as coming like a thief, in a fiery deluge, for which 
the heavens and the earth were kept in store, in antici- 
pation of new heavens and a new earth, — the abode of 
righteousness. This is his appeal to the faithful : " See- 

1 Rev. XX. 11-15. 



326 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

ing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what 
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and 
godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming 
of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being 
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat? But, according to his promise, we 
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
righteousness." ^ 

This deluge of destruction to the ungodly, and of 
deliverance to the faithful, however, like its prototype 
in the days of Noah, is a judgment " according to men 
in the flesh," — a judgment not of necessity to destroy, 
but possibly to emancipate and purify the life, " accord- 
ing to God in the spirit." ^ 

Whether it be the spiritual reign within or the natu- 
ral government without that chiefly fastens attention, 
each is inseparable from the other. Material nature has 
ever its highest significance as the theatre and property 
of moral agents. But outward representations of com- 
ing crises are pictures upon a flat surface. They are so 
foreshortened that the prompt imagination cannot at all 
appreciate the historical perspective, and takes the whole 
as being at hand. It is St. Paul who sets himself to 
correct the habit, apparently too prevalent in the early 
church, of looking for a speedy consummation of the 
Christ's militant reign in a final triumph. Especially 
the Epistles to the Thessalonians are addressed, in part, 
to a certain disquieting pre-occupation about times and 
seasons ; and the faithful are exhorted to the watchful- 
ness and sobriety appropriate to children of the light, — 
forewarned and forearmed.^ Again, they are told not to 

1 2 Peter iii. 1-13. 2 i Peter iv. 6 ; and iii. 19, 20. 

8 1 Thess. V. 1-11. 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 327 

be quickly shaken or troubled in mind, as that the day 
of the Lord is present.^ The prophetic soul of the 
Apostle to the Gentiles is expanding to the spiritual 
proportions of the Christian conflict : such mighty pow- 
ers of opposition are holding in restraint the ultimate 
revelation, — when the last enemy shall be destroyed, 
and through the complete subjection of all things to 
the mediatorial King, God shall be all in all.^ Still, St. 
Paul draws his picture of the day of the Lord rather 
from cii'cumstances of triumph than from incidents of 
destruction. That presence (paroiosia), which sustains 
the disciples in their personal conflicts, will change to 
a triumphal revelation of the Leader's person, when 
the war shall end. Meanwhile no one is to wait idly 
for the Lord's appearance. No one is to fancy that those 
who are remaining in the body at the final day will 
have any advantage or precedence as compared with 
those who have fallen asleep in death. For, says the 
apostle, "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with 
the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first : then we that are alive, that are left, shall, together 
with them, be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." ^ 

Diverging rays of thought in the writings of apostles 
lead back to their source in the Lord's teaching. It was 
the Christ who, knowing the import of his own initia- 
tive, appreciated the crisis in history which would soon 
declare itself as an inevitable sequel. The more men's 
characters and tendencies were made manifest through 
his ministry, the more the hour drew on, to the appre- 
hension of Jesus, when his own crucifixion would be 

1 2 Thess. ii. 1-12. 2 j Qqj.^ ^v. 25-28. s i xhess. iv. 16, 17. 



328 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

reached. But it was not Ms crucifixion, so much as the 
portentous judgment that would ensue upon it, that 
weighed upon his spirit. A judgment of such awful 
finality, of such condemnatory severity, — a crisis in- 
volving such destruction and dispersion of his own 
people, when as their spiritual Prince he would have 
led them in the way of peace, — how could he endure 
the anticipation of it, — especially the thought that 
they would bring it upon themselves by a tumultuary 
and defiant overruling of Caesar's representative, upon 
the hypocritical pretence of loyalty to Csesar, and in 
blind rejection of the reign of God ? But if the Jews 
neither rendered to Caesar the things that were Caesar's 
nor to God the things that w^ere God's, surely Eome's 
stern reckoning with provmcial tempers of this sort was 
neither doubtful nor distant ; and it was in effect the 
reckoning, not of Caesar alone, but of the universal 
Judge. 

The cities of Galilee were warned. Their day of judg- 
ment would overwhelm them in a catastrophe less toler- 
able than even the most exemplary calamities of other 
cities, — so much more flagrantly had they offended, 
against far mightier persuasions of truth and goodness. 
The repentance of the men of Nineveh, the docility of the 
queen of the South, — these were examples to rise up in 
the judgment and condemn the men of that generation. 
Upon Jerusalem woe, as unparalleled as her wickedness ! 
" Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and 
stonest them which are sent unto thee, liow often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."^ 

1 Matt, xxiii. 37, 38. 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 329 

"And when he drew nigh he saw the city, and wept 
over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even 
thou, the things that belong unto peace ! But now they 
are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon 
thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about 
thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every 
side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children 
within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone 
upon another ; because thou knewest not the time of thy 
visitation." ^ 

The disciples, far from exhibiting any anxiety at first 
about their personal fortunes, seem to have taken the 
part of advocates, — making appeal to their Master on 
behalf of the city unconscious of her doom, pointing as 
they passed, with affectionate pride, to the well-laid 
stones of the temple-buildings, — so worthy to be spared, 
if not likely to resist assault. But when the unwelcome 
prediction was repeated, and Jesus, with his group of 
followers, had reached the Mount of Olives, there were 
some that sought private instruction, as if for their per- 
sonal guidance in the trials before them. The interview 
is given by three evangelists, with remarkable harmony 
of coloring and distinctness of detail.^ It opens with 
the request : " Tell us when shall these things be ? and 
what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of 
the world ? " — the end of the world being, as we have 
seen, the consummation of the wo7i, or world-period. 

Far from rebuking them for an unavailing curiosity 
about what was beyond their range, our Lord ministers 
to their practical prudence out of his own prophetic in- 
tuition ; and though the prophetic imagery, as usual, is 
of a kind to suggest the infinite dominion to which our 

1 Luke xix. 41-44. 2 Matt. xxiv. : Mark xiii. : Luke xxi. 



330 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

earthly existence belongs, the immediate application of 
his words is governed by the emphatic declaration : 
" Yerily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass 
away, till all these things be accomplished." The Leader 
sets before his followers the trials they will encounter, 

— the earlier premonitions, which need give them no im- 
mediate trouble ; the later warnings, pointing to instant 
flight ; the supreme tribulation, " such as hath not 
been from the beginning of the world until now ; no, nor 
ever shall be." The acme of judicial terror and destruc- 
tion in the world's history was near ; and the parable of 
the fig-tree was added, that they might be on the watch ; 
because the day and hour could not be noted in the cal- 
endar, but were in the power of God, according to the 
law of things. 

If the crisis of the ante-Christian world was to be one 
of unexampled tribulation, what did the faith of the 
Christ hold forth as to the character and consummation 
of the new world-movement ? The new dispensation 
was conceived as that of the " last days " and the " last 
times." It contemplated seasons of refreshing from the 
presence of the Lord ; " whom the heaven must receive 
until the times of restitution of all things, whereof God 
spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have 
been since the world began." ^ It was to have a con- 
summation in direct contrast with that of the old world, 
— not the destruction of a desecrated Jerusalem, but 
" the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from 
God;" not even the dissolution of the physical order, 
as anything more than an incident of spiritual history, 
which would demand " new heavens and a new earth," 

— fit scene for ''the revelation of the sons of God." 

1 Acts iii. 19-21. 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 331 

Yet the two world-movements, represented by such 
contrasted consummations, are one. The latter grows 
out of the former. No quality in either is wholly want- 
ing to the other. If the first is stronger in corporate 
constramt, it is not because there is no individual initi- 
ative, — rather because personal caprices have special 
need of being reduced to general order. If the last 
movement is stronger in individual initiative, it is not 
because corporate inertia does not offer a resisting me- 
dium to personal endeavor, but that, under the highest 
example and inspiration, the social body becomes sympa- 
thetic and apt in the appreciation of prophets of the 
day. Similarly, if the first world-period was one of 
waste and destruction, it was not without its creative 
processes ; and if the last is a period of production and 
conservation, there are nevertheless destructions which 
it cannot dispense with. If the crisis of divine forbear- 
ance and condescension was when Jesus said, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do ; " ^ then 
the crisis of triumph and glory shall be when, all things 
having been subjected unto him, '' the Son also himself 
shall be subjected to him that did subject all things 
unto him, that God may be all in all." ^ This is the crisis 
of resurrection, when destruction itself is destroyed ; for, 
" the last enemy that shall be abolished is death." ^ 

But, meanwhile, how many an appointed day, in which 
God will judge the inhabitants of earth in righteousness, 
by the man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath 
given assurance imto all men, in that he hath raised 
him from the dead.* How many nations shall pass 
before his judgment-seat ; and he shall discern between 

1 Luke xxiii. 34. 2 i Cor. xv. 28. 

8 1 Cor. XV. 26. * Acts xvii. 31. 



332 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

the righteous and the wicked, — setting them apart from 
one another spiritually, as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
from the goats, — in order that each character may enter 
upon an seonian retribution, according to the disposition 
declared and the disciplme required. The government 
of mankind is not physical at first in order to be moral 
by and by; it is a moral government from the begin- 
ning, that it may by and by bring men to spiritual 
maturity beyond the present order of nature. 

One germ, one principle of growth, one end and aim 
of being, one solid society, whether in the body or out of 
the body, one age of ages pervading things visible and 
things invisible, — such is the Scriptural conception of 
history. It is a conception unspeakably majestic, — so 
essentially simple as to reconcile all diversities of expe- 
rience. The physical and moral transformations which 
seonian life contemplates cannot be carried on without 
the reciprocal service of society and individuals, of ages 
and ages. The spiritual creation of God is subjected to 
earthly conditions and temporary struggles, till the time 
of change,' the crisis of victory and freedom is reached. 
Nothing is for itself alone. If the experience of the past 
has been of service as to the experience of the future, 
shall not the men of the future pay their debt to the 
men of the past ? Had the ages of the prophets nothing 
to hope from the ages of the Christ ? But, according 
to St. Peter, the prophets had the assurance of minis- 
tering to other times than theirs, and of ministering to 
the knowledge of things which were to be preached in 
the Gospel of Christ, "by the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven, — which things angels desire to look 
into." 1 

1 1 Pet. i. 10-12. 



CRISES INTERPRETED BY THE CHRIST. 333 

" But I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for 
them that persecute you ; that ye may be the sons of 
your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun 
to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the 
just and the unjust." On whom, then, does the Sun of 
righteousness rise ? The spiritual light of the world, — 
how long shall it shine ? Certainly upon all who are 
judged in righteousness ; and so long as they shall be so 
judged. Judgment is teaching, — the application of law, 
which is perfect, converting the soul. There is no reve- 
lation without it. The reign of God and righteousness is 
for none but free spirits ; and to free spirits the privilege 
of obedience is implied in the demand of law. The 
great Teacher appears as the considerate apologist and 
just advocate of those who err through natural inability 
or ignorance, the uncompromising antagonist and stern 
censor of such as knowingly resist the call of duty, hav- 
ing ample resources for fulfilling it. Men are warned of 
catastrophes, which their inertness, egoism, and obstinacy 
may precipitate, of consequences that propagate them- 
selves from age to age ; yet never are they warned that 
the law of rational responsibility, according to which 
every recorded judgment becomes a basis for the recon- 
sideration and rearrangement of moral relations, can be 
abrogated. While, therefore, the divine Father is re- 
vealed as ever favorable to those who follow after right- 
eousness, he is equally gracious and faithful in his 
judgments upon those who choose the ways of trans- 
gression. A creature of God cannot come to the latest 
judgment upon practical disobedience without reaching 
the latest degree of voluntary alienation from duty; 
while in all, — those who are reconciled to the Father 
through the revelation of the Christ or those who are 



334 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

not, — the reign of universal love is eternally determin- 
ing the awards of distributive justice, — " to every man 
according to his works." 

In fine, whatever intimations w^e have in Scripture 
touching a " last judgment" and a " last day," — chiefly 
that pregnant saying of the great Teacher, "He that 
rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one 
that judgeth him : the word that I spake, the same shall 
judge him in the last day," ^ — must not be made to 
contradict the majesty of divine government by a petty 
literalism in the construction of words and figures. 
How can a transcendent idea be accommodated to our 
thoughts but in the language of common life ? Are not 
all judgments of God last judgments in the sense of 
being ultimate — without appeal and without revision ? 
But Christian faith has pictured a "last judgment" for 
a " last day," — the closing up of a governmental econ- 
omy in the consummation of a world-history. Here, of 
course, as elsewhere, " last " is last in a given order of 
things. According to St. Augustine the last judgment 
is not only judiciicm ultiniiuii, hut judicium novissimum^ 
the latest judgment in a known order of divine revela- 
tion. But this known order of divine revelation in the 
Scripture rendering of it is vital in every part with 
the teaching that justice and judgment do not begin 
or end with world-ages. They are enthroned with the 
Eternal. 

1 John xii. 48. ^ De Civitate Dei, lib. xx. c 1. 



CONCLUSION. 



"Let your moderation be known unto all men." 

Philippians iv. 5. 

"That you o'erstep not the modesty of nature." 

Shakspeake : Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 2. 



CONCLUSIOK 

TF the study now brought to an end could convey even 
-*- to a few minds a sober impression of what is the 
difference between searching the Scriptures with a con- 
scientious reference to the real life and movement of 
which they speak, and searching the Scriptures with an 
equally conscientious regard to a system of abstract doc- 
trines, deduced, or to be deduced, from a careful dissec- 
tion and microscopic examination of their literal tissue, 
— it would not be a trivial result. But this result is 
not to be gained without some apprehension of divine 
revelation in its organic unity and boundless scope ; and 
with this apprehension all interest begins to be turned 
to the reality and spirit of revelation, as distinguished 
from the record and letter of the same. We begin to see 
that it is not about otherwise unknowable or secret 
things that we are invited to consult the "lively ora- 
cles." Our inquiry is about things of the common and 
familiar creation, things of nature, " these things," — 
whether they are so or otherwise. Within this range we 
can form some judgment as to what responses are true 
to reality, and what are marked with the ambiguity and 
incoherency of conventional or perfunctory divination. 

We have been contemplating one reality under vari- 
ous relations of thought, intending that each succeeding 
aspect or movement of inquiry should take up and carry 

22 



338 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE, 

on the truth of all that preceded it toward one general 
impression. But in such a progress something is of 
necessity left behind. Special impressions and argu- 
ments of detail are lost to recollection. Hence, when 
the matter under consideration is the most important in 
kind, it is well perhaps not to take abrupt leave of one's 
work, but to sum up briefly what has appeared to be 
true, in a way to indicate the logical connection and 
practical bearings of the argument as a whole. 

Nature in Scripture is not only nature according to 
common sense, but universal nature, — the sum total of 
dependent existence, without assignable limits in space 
or time. 

Man, as part of nature, is represented in Scripture as 
having his discipline in space and time, under conditions 
that are determined for him, rather than by him, — con- 
ditions, however, which he is constituted to interpret 
rationally and to treat responsibly, as bringing into per- 
sonal experience more and more the divine ruling. 

The divine ruling becomes effective in the movement 
of human society through the faith and conduct of the 
better inspired of men ; and is represented in the New 
Testament as reaching a rounded and complete revela- 
tion in one Man, announced in the fulness of time as the 
first-begotten Son of the divine Father, — Teacher, and 
Euler, in a unique sense, — in fine, the personal Wisdom 
and practical Word of God for universal humanity. 

The revelation of God is conceived in Scripture as 
not incidental to the course of nature, but the ground 
of it; and, similarly, the revelation of God in man is 
regarded, not as contingent upon any particular action 
of any individual, but as that for which generic man was 
originally constituted in the order of nature. In other 



CONCLUSION. 339 

words, the divine revelation is inclusive of nature, and 
nature is penetrated with the purpose of God ; while man 
in particular is taught to apprehend himself not only as 
the creature of tlie Creator, but as the ward and pupil, 
so to speak, of the divine Eeason in the process of reve- 
lation ; and thus the divine Word is the expression of 
patient Love " from the foundation of the world," that 
it may be the utterance of regenerating Goodness in " the 
consummation of the age." 

Accordingly, the Scriptures set before us certain in- 
separable parts or aspects of the divine procedure, pro- 
vided for in the constitution of things and verifiable in 
the common experience of men. In these we are pre- 
sented with a series of moral, not to say mathematical, 
equations, namely, — 

First, a personal manhood, animal and spiritual, started, 
in ignorance and dependence, upon a career involved 
in an infinite creative purpose, is equal only to a man- 
hood whose moral development will be one involving 
difficulty and danger, wherein personal righteousness will 
depend of necessity upon faith in a direction afforded, 
and not, in the beginning at any rate, upon recognized 
perfection in things done. 

Secondly, the same manhood developed in a race, 
whose complex constitution is ever determining a dis- 
tinction of better and worse in the aims and examples 
of society, yet ever sustaining a personal freedom of 
choice respecting the objects to be immediately pursued, 
is equal only to a moral discipline, wherein the effort 
to realize a positive good will determine the knowledge 
of relative evil, and spiritual law will exact free personal 
sacrifices as a method of reconciling provisional efforts 
with the demands of ideal and ulterior life. 



340 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

Thirdly, the moral government which exacts free sac- 
rifices of personal loyalty for spiritual ends, while not 
forcibly arresting the wilful pursuit of selfish satisfac- 
tions, is identical with the moral government which 
determines crises, — wherein the communion of self- 
sacrifice for the universal good is to be recognized 
by all as "the cup of blessing," in contrast with the 
" poisoned chalice " of selfish enjoyment at the common 
cost. 

Thus, the fact that " the law of the Eternal is perfect, 
converting the soul," implies the fact that the soul of 
man is in a process of growth and discipline, passing 
through its conversions. But human progress is recog- 
nized in Scripture as not one of pure physical determin- 
ism, and not one of unembarrassed spiritual freedom. 
Consequently, man is treated, not as a being whose be- 
havior on earth can be justly appreciated in the order 
of purely scientific thought, or in the order of purely 
moral judgments, but as a being who must reach his 
maturity of character, find the just significance of his 
actions, and give account of himself to God, in an order 
of spiritual relations beyond the range of a transitory 
physical economy. 

As, however, the consummation of mankind is held to 
depend upon the revelation of the Father, so spiritual 
changes are set forth in Scripture as having their intel- 
lectual preparations and their voluntary crises in the 
development of human nature. Hence there is con- 
ceived a turning-point to be called the conversion: in 
the individual, it is when spirit and truth are defini- 
tively affirmed as the dominant and enduring reality; 
in the race, it is when the Christ supersedes the reli- 
gious ruling of the tribe, the worship of places and of 



CONCLUSION. 341 

forms, by the loyal faith of the personal child of the 
Father, the worship "in spirit and in truth." 

Accordingly, in personal experience as well as in 
prophetic teaching, the efficiency of the Christ, as Mes- 
senger of the Father, is properly apprehended in relation 
to universal history. His service is not summed up in 
spiritual phenomena of detail, not confined to the church 
as distmguished from the world, not for men of faith to 
the exclusion of unbelievers ; but embraces the whole 
movement of human history as related to the whole 
revelation of God. The saying of Pascal, "without 
Jesus Christ we know neither what life is, nor what 
death is, nor what God is, nor what we ourselves are," ^ 
is the negative expression of what is stated positively 
by St. John, that Jesus Christ was the true light " which 
lighteth every man." 

That communication of truth and life called regenera- 
tion, and conceived in the teaching of the Christ as iden- 
tical with the spiritual reign of God, is for man as man ; 
while the normal and clear manifestation of it is in man 
as receptive of the truth and faithful to conscientious 
conviction, in order that, working together with the 
divine Spirit, he may be led on from his birth as the 
offspring of the Creator to his birth as the spiritual 
child and heir of the Father. Eegeneration reaches its 
perfect type and revelation in the Christ, Son of man 
and Son of God ; and the note or exemplary affirmation 
of this, according to the Scripture testimony, is the bap- 
tism of water and of the spirit, which signalizes the 
Son's deliberate devotion to the Father and the Father's 
reciprocal recognition of the Son.^ 

1 Pensees, vol. ii. p. 317. 

2 Matt. iii. 13-17 ; Mark i. 9-11 ; Luke iii. 21, 22. 



342 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

The reign of God in man, by virtue of its being " re- 
generation," is set forth as "salvation" also. Not only 
those who allow the Word of God to have free course 
and to be glorified in their spirits are saved from sins 
and suffermgs into which they might otherwise fall ; 
but those also who, through disloyalty and disobedience 
to salutary teaching from above have fallen into error 
and blindness wherein they are lost to the rational faith 
and peaceful enjoyment of the divine goodness, — even 
they can be saved from their sins by the efficiency of 
the Father's love in the Son's condescension. Man's 
unbelief cannot make the faith of God of none effect. 

Jesus Christ, as Minister of the regeneration, is also 
Master, as respects the method of man's discipleship. 
His address to the Father in prayer for his disciples is : 
" I have given unto them the words which thou gavest 
me." ^ So his disciples are required to learn of him that 
they may teach others ; while none are permitted to be 
masters in the Christian school, as having authority to 
check or limit teaching and learning by a personal judg- 
ment still liable to error. Thus the effort of thought in 
Christian disciples is clearly recognized as relative, not 
only to the powers of the thinker, but to nature environ- 
ing the thinker. Its praise is sincerity, not infallibility. 

Progress in truth depends upon one's not pretending 
to know, when one only believes ; and progress in faith 
depends upon one's not pretending to believe, when one 
only assents. The expression of common Christian in- 
tegrity, whether in teaching or learning, is : " We having 
the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I 
believed, and therefore have I spoken : we also believe 
and therefore speak." ^ 

1 John svii. 8. 2 2 Cor. iv. 13. 



CONCLUSION. 343 

As, however, there is a constitution of material nature 
which holds through all physical changes, and a consti- 
tution of the human mind the same through all spiritual 
transformations, this constitution of things material and 
spiritual becomes the basis and law of scientific, philo- 
sophic, and moral verification; or, what is the same 
thing, it ensures to man the possibility of making prog- 
ress in truth, notwithstanding his liability of falling into 
error. 

By one constitution of nature men are ever drawn 
towards unity of thought and knowledge, through end- 
less contradictions of scientific opinion. By one Lord 
and Master of the spiritual life men are likewise drawn 
towards unity of faith and obedience, through the more 
passionate contradictions of metaphysical speculation and 
dogmatic dicta. No wonder, therefore, that our Lord 
took care to teach that men might have to seize upon 
the comfortable hopes of the Father's reign by faith in 
the Father, — and not without what might be called 
" violence " with respect to established authorities and 
conventional constructions of holy texts. 

But in Scripture as elsewhere " the truth itself " ^ of 
St. Augustine, — that is, reality, the law of nature unmis- 
takably verifying itself in common experience, — assumes 
a predominance in the domain of faith on the ground of 
its unimpeachable quality of certitude. And this is as 
much as to say that testimonies and representations 
naturally unverifiable, though accepted as standing for 
what is true, cannot rule in human conviction with the 
authority of self-evidence. Such elements in the Bible, 
as in other literature, are open to doubt and discussion 
by the very law of our human faculties, — on the ground, 

1 " Sed loquitur [Deus] ipsa veritate." 



344 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

at least, that the lack of known example or rational 
proof of what exactly was meant by the sacred writer is 
equivalent to the liability of misunderstanding on the 
part of even the most believing reader. While, how- 
ever, things imperfectly understood, and carrying, possi- 
bly, no proof of historic exactness in detail, have often 
great importance and effectiveness in the general picture 
of reality, they cannot properly derogate at all, even in 
minds that assent to no pretension of canonicity, from 
the rational claim of the Scriptures to stand for the 
teaching of God, in so far as they are true to the nature 
of things. 

But, again, if sacred books have become such by a real 
relation to the process of God's teaching, then the per- 
sistency of God's teaching may be relied upon to sustain 
their authority. Therefore, over-anxious restriction of 
thought, certainly not less than over-confident freedom 
of inquiry, is a sign of dulness and decay in religious 
faith. Faith requires that in the free play of conflicting 
ideas, men should devoutly own a common allegiance to 
the truth as one. But the oneness of truth is the unity 
of nature. It is nature that saves Scriptures of what- 
ever class from private judgments and one-sided inter- 
pretations. It is the law of nature in Scripture which 
forbids us to press opposite representations of detail to 
their logical extremes, till they contradict, not only each 
other, but the postulates of universal reason. It is 
taught that God is with the faithful as he is not with 
the unfaithful ; that the disciples of Christ are " not of 
the world," inasmuch as their leader has " chosen them out 
of the world ; " that the idolatrous nations were " dead 
in trespasses and sins " relatively to that peculiar quick- 
ening contemplated in the Christian life ; that " having 



CONCLUSION, 345 

no hope and without God [atheists] in the world" ex- 
presses a genuine contrast between the degradation of 
popular paganism and the faith in God, the " reasonable, 
religious, and holy hope," of sincere Christians; that 
sacraments become a channel of grace to the faithful, 
above and beyond the ministrations of divine Goodness 
to men as children of nature. But if all this is to be 
aJ0&rmed, something else must not be denied. There is 
grace in nature; there is light and hope from life's 
Source for every man ; there is faith in the East and the 
West, in the North and in the South, to shame the unbe- 
lief of an ecclesiastical elect ; there is a gospel of quicken- 
ing and resurrection for the unrighteous as well as for the 
just ; God is not far from every one of us, " for in him we 
hve, and move, and have our being ; " the divine effort to 
regenerate society demands recognition and co-operation 
from all men without exception and according to reason. 

As Christian faith passes into practical endeavor, the 
transformation of moral activity through the renewing 
of the mind becomes the ruling idea of life. To realize 
by faithful trials " the good, the acceptable, the perfect, 
the will of God," — not to accommodate one's ways to the 
fashion of a passing world, — is the effort proper to man. 
For so the perishable body becomes a living sacrifice to 
the Father through the constant devotion of the spirit.^ 
The tribute of the instant, required " according to that 
a man hath and not according to that he hath not," 
becomes the type of an eternal service, wherein " to him 
that hath shall more be given," that he may have and 
give abundantly. 

Similarly, when the Christian calling is conceived as 
the working out of salvation from evil habits and the 

1 Eom. xii. 1, 2. 



346 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

bondage of error, albeit " with fear and trembling," it is 
still a reasonable service ; because " it is God who work- 
eth in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
Man's co-operation with God is nowhere set forth in 
Scripture, according to the type of that more or less 
fantastic theurgy, which construes the divine Spirit as 
making no sign, the divine operations as inadequate or 
behind their time, appropriate results as not realized, the 
kingdom of God as here or there rather than within, — 
and the universal Presence as " in a journey," to be sum- 
moned, to be stayed, to be entreated not to pass by. 

Especially does the great Teacher guard childhood 
against any such phrasing of religious experience as 
would discredit what the unsophisticated "Httle one" 
has done, or discourage the undertaking of what remains 
to do. The expectation of a special and conspicuous 
interposition of God for bringing to pass such a crisis 
and change as shall stand a monumental boundary be- 
tween an assumed predominance of adverse instincts and 
the voluntary acknowledgment of spiritual authority, 
is corrected by the Saviour's habit of referring moral 
conduct, at every period of life, to its proper principle, 
and by his never treating it as a foregone conclusion, or 
matter of course. No temporary resolution or emotion 
was treated by him as proof of determined character, 
apart from the practical trial of every-day duty. He 
laid his hands on little children and blessed them, 
warned his disciples to take heed and not cause them 
to stumble, recognized t\iQ relation of infantile simpli- 
city to permanent discipleship as well as to present dan- 
gers, declared that it was not the will of the Father that 
one of these little ones should come to the ruin of life, 
— and all this without any express reference to a crit- 



CONCLUSION. 347 

ical standard of experience which at some particular 
time, sooner or later, they might be expected to exhibit. 
So, finally, in regard to the remote issues of human 
conduct, — men conceived as reaching a clear determina- 
tion of mind and will, either for or against whatsoever 
things are true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good 
report, not without the discipline and tests of experi- 
ence, are necessarily conceived as reaching also the gen- 
eral types of destiny appropriate to opposing courses of 
conduct, not abruptly, but by a gradual effort, and 
through a thoroi^'h trial of personal preferences. JSTo 
forebodings of terror are commissioned to disturb the 
sane and trustful souls, whose is " the peace of God that 
passeth all understanding ; " and no promises of felicity 
can bring solace to the remorseful spirit, till Nemesis 
shall have wrought well in her moral teaching. Con- 
scious guilt cannot " pronounce amen " to any benedic- 
tion. Conscious virtue need not "fear the might of any 
adversary." ''The speech of mortals is pliant," says 
Homer, "the range of words wide, this way and that 
way." 1 Neither the sacred writers nor their interpret- 
ers constitute an exception to the rule. St. Augustine 
finds the reign of God figured m Scripture as a militant 
state, and takes the highest exhibition of Eoman majesty 

— " to spare the vanquished and to coerce the proud " ^ 

— as the changeless type of the heavenly empire. But 
Greek philosophy is as significant as Eoman imperial- 
ism in the interpretation of the divine Word. Origen 
will have it that a result which might indeed be " impos- 
sible to those who are still in the body," is " not so to 
those who are released from it." " Our belief is," he 

i Iliad, b. XX. 1. 248, 249. 

2 « Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." 



348 NATURE IN SCRIPTURE. 

writes, "that the Word shall prevail over the entire 
rational creation, and change every soul into his own 
perfection." '' For," he adds, " stronger than all the evils 
in the soul is the Word, and the healing power that 
dwells in Him ; and this healing He applies, according 
to the will of God, to every man." ^ Origen and Augus- 
tine stand for alternations of thought in the prophetic 
soul of humanity ; and these alternations, like the swing- 
ing of the pendulum, are both sustained and checked by 
one universal law. Under this law the future of man- 
kind is something to be wrought out ; and we are called 
upon to win our modest successes in the moral struggle 
of life on the plain assurance that every actual contribu- 
tion to individual and collective history shall take due 
effect, without limits of time, upon subsequent experi- 
ence ; while the consummation of aeons will record only 
decisions of the creative Eeason, that rules from age to 
age as the fundamental law of the human spirit. 

1 Against Celsus, b. viii. ch. 72. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 
T. & T. Clark. 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



